Let the Good Times Roll: The 60th Hunger Games
by LadyCordeliaStuart
Summary: And it begins anew. Pretty much full SYOT
1. Chapter 1

**Just adding some of the Tributes as I get them so I know who's where.**

**Same as ever. I'm not going to start the Reapings this time until I get every form. I usually take a few days to plan and go through forms anyway, so this time I'm just going to have a set period. This gives me time to catch up on one-shots and also means that I can write at a regular pace once I start. I'm only putting this story up so soon so I can post the slots and ensure I didn't double-book any. I've held two back this time for that exact possibility. Once I know everyone is properly placed I can go through my PMs and give out those slots. So let me know if you're not in a slot you reserved.**

**The gap years are for Cecelia and a One female.  
**

* * *

**1 Male: Sparky She-Demon- Alsace Cartier (Career) 18  
**

**1 Female: PrinceofCorinth- Andromeda Dior (Career) 18**

**2 Male: Reader Castellan- Sagar Dewpont (Career) 17  
**

**2 Female: Ripple237- Medusa Gorgona (Career) 18**

**3 Male: Guesttwelve Ryx Marker (Allying with Queenie, Camille, Joy and Aurelia) 14**

**3 Female: MRKenn Andrea D'Amour (Seeking allies) 16  
**

**4 Male: 66samvr- Percy Mordecai (Career) 15  
**

**4 Female: JAJ- Cyrene Longuemare (Career) 16  
**

**5 Male: SPARKALEAH- Remus Ray (seeking allies) 16  
**

**5 Female: Aurelia Jackson- (Allying with Queenie, Camille, Joy and Ryx) 12**

**6 Male: CarlpoppaLOL Antonion "Tony" Gear (unknown)  
**

**6 Female: foxfox12- Siobhan Hearse (Unknown) 13  
**

**7 Male: Sparky SHe-Demon- Rigel Aspen (Loner) 17  
**

**7 Female: LordZagreus- Katrina Moonshadow (Loner) 15  
**

**8 Male: AmericanPi- Fryderyk Zieliński (seeking one ally) 18  
**

**8 Female: Americanpi - Cerise Dupin (Open to allies) 18**

**9 Male: CarlpoppaLOL Arthur Harrington (Seeking allies) 12  
**

**9 Female: LordShiro Camille Igawa (Seeking allies) 16**

**10 Male: LEAVE OPEN **

**10 Female: Platrium - Queenie Hesperaloe (Allying with Aurelia, Camille, Joy and Ryx) 18**

**11 Male: Professor R.J. Lupin Pikney "Pik" Reynolds (Seeking allies) 18  
**

**11 Female: Tinks- Rachel "Switch" Larson (Open to allies) 17  
**

**12 Male: SantiagoPoncini- Joy Wincenty (Allying with Queenie, Aurelia, Camille and Ryx) 14**

**12 Female: IIJamesII- ****Harper Newman (Open to allies)15**

* * *

**I take any form people use, since some people have their own forms or are recycling a Tribute (which is entirely allowed. If a Tribute's story got cancelled they're eligible. If the story didn't get cancelled and they died, they're eligible. You could even send a Victor if you really wanted but seems slim chances they'd win twice. **

**If you want some ideas, here are some suggested categories. Ones left unbolded are ones I particularly like to see since they help me write.**

**Name, Age, District:**

**Appearance:**

**Personality:**

**Background:**

**Important people in their life, if any:**

**Token:**

**Mentor: You can pick which of the reader-submitted or me-created Victors you want to mentor your Tribute and you can say how they get along.**

**Parade outfit:**

**What they learned in the Capitol:**

**Allying or not:**

**Private session skills and score: I'll take whatever you send. It's a double-edged sword.**

**Interview outfit and angle:**

**Bloodbath plan:**

Games strategy:

Development: You can lay out a suggested story arc for your Tribute. This helps me make them compelling without me having to figure out 24 stories on my own.

Fight or flight response:

One word to sum them up: I really like seeing this because it helps me find the one thing I start building a character out of so they all stand apart from the others.

Biggest strength:

Biggest weakness:

How they would win: I'm lazy so I like when people give me ideas

How they would die:

How long you think they'll last: You know your Tribute better than I do so I do value that input.

**Anything else**

**A lot of you already sent in forms and it's fine if they're missing any of these. If you do want to add them, you can do that at any point.**

* * *

**For sponsoring, I'm too lazy to have a complicated system. Generally I let people send one lifesaving item and one random item. That said, I'm very fickle and pretty much just allow or deny based on whims, though I do make sure everyone is pretty much even. **

**This time, I'm starting some new additions. Careers will be judged more generously for obvious reasons and may get more gifts than other Tributes. I'm also going to reserve the right to send more items to Tributes that are particularly attractive: romantic couples, super charismatic Tributes, and the like. I won't send a lot, but charisma and popularity are legitimate strengths in the Hunger Games and I want that to be reflected just like speed and agility are. Basically I'll be acting as the Capitol audience and doing my best to reflect what I think they would send. Maybe I'll incorporate polls. That would be more accurate since it would have more data points.**


	2. One Reaping

**Everyone was super eager so I went ahead and wrote a Reaping. This isn't the passive-aggressive hint I was talking about where I start writing to suggest that slow people send in their forms. I just did this to give you something while I take it slow and gather forms.**

* * *

Alsace Cartier- District One male

My cousin was winning. Lyon was almost at the end. He'd already killed Havelock, his only real competition. All that was left was the slippery sneak from Seven. Loki did well for himself getting this far, but he was no match for Lyon. My cousin was the best fighter in the world. There was no one he couldn't beat.

Lyon was winning. Loki kept trying to get away, but that was all he could do: run. Sooner or later Lyon would catch him. He could run but he couldn't hide. Lyon swam up right next to Loki. They were locked in combat. Lyon was about to strike the killing blow.

Loki's knife was sticking out of Lyon's mouth.

I jumped up from the floor and ran to the television set. I grabbed the edges with both arms, my head nearly touching the screen. I sat frozen in disbelief as I watched Lyon start to thrash and panic.

_No. No. No. No._

Lyon lost. Lyon was dying. The strongest person I'd ever known, the one I'd lived with since I was five, the one I thought of as a brother more than a cousin. He was invincible. He was already the Victor before he left. He was bleeding out into the water. He was dying. And I was screaming like I hadn't screamed since I saw a car run over my dog Bear and drive off without even stopping.

**SIX YEARS LATER  
**

That was the most important day of my life. It never left my thoughts, not for the next six years. Six years I spent in the same Academy Lyon studied in. I learned from the same teachers and took up the same weapon: a common, merciless sword. And none of it brought Lyon back. I'd known from the start that nothing would ever fix what went wrong. I wasn't interested in putting it right. I wanted to avenge it.

Lyon was our champion. He had been born to bring victory and legacy to our family. What had been taken from him would be taken back by me. He made me who I was and I would pay him back by finishing his quest. When the Games started, I would kill. I would kill as many as I needed to be the only one standing at the end. For the most part, it would be just part of the Games, just what I had to do. But there was one Tribute out there who didn't know he was already damned. No matter what it took, how far I had to search, what the other Careers thought of me, I would find the boy from Seven. There was judgement to pay.

* * *

Andromeda Dior- District One female

The Academy chose me. After all the doubts about my background. All the scorn, some hidden and some overt, from the outnumbered but significant portion of instructors and evaluators about someone so... "underprivileged", they put it on the days when they were trying to be polite. Sometimes I wondered if I was crazy when it crossed my mind that they might have chosen me out of pity. That was a crazy thing to think. They wouldn't throw away a Games on someone they didn't think was worthy. No, they weren't pitying me. What was possible was that they were just wrong.

Who was I to think I could win the Games? Year after year we'd tried and failed. Students far better than me had perished. What chance did I have? Even if I was the best- and I wasn't at all sure I was- that still might not be enough. "Best" just means from a given population. One wasn't the only District. And I wasn't even sure I was the best in the Academy, far less in the nation.

All of those were just thoughts, to be kept in the privacy of my head and never aired to my mother as we sat down for our last dinner together. She'd made my favorite, lemon pepper chicken and cheesy potatoes, and I'd heard her sniffing as she did. As I set the table, she went to the back room to get the fancy tablecloth we hardly ever used. She was gone long enough that I went to check on her. When I did, I found her bent over the cabinet, clutching the tablecloth to her face and crying into it.

"Mom," I said. My voice went all squeaky like I was five years old again. I took a deep breath and pressed it all down until I could talk normally before I started. "It's okay, Mom. I'll be fine."

Mom shoved the tablecloth onto the cabinet and wiped at her eyes. "I know. I know you'll be the best. I just worry. I'm a mom. I'll always worry about you, sweet pea."

Moms and daughters have always been the same, I guess. We both stood there trying to be strong for the other. In this case, I was more successful. It was easier for me. I was the one at risk, not the one staying home and worrying. I put out my arms and came for her in a hug. She grabbed onto me so quickly and fiercely it was like I'd grabbed for a boiling pot of water and she was snatching me away.

_I'll make this worth it,_ I vowed. My mother should never have to cry. She was the strongest, bravest woman I knew and she'd been my protector and nurturer from the day she made me. I could never in a million years deserve her, but I was going to get as close as I could. I clawed my way to the top of the Academy and earned a spot in the Hunger Games. Now I was going to go and prove to everyone at the Academy and everyone in the District that I wasn't lower-class trash to be overlooked and passed by. I would earn her the fame and riches and easy life she deserved. She was the mother I never deserved. At last I would be the daughter she did.

* * *

**Alsace: Looks very much like his cousin Lyon, except with indigo eyes which were altered from brown. 6'4**

**Andromeda: Around 5'4", Andromeda is not a typical stunner from 1. Andromeda has never heard anyone describe her looks to her as anything more than "average". She is of hispanic descent and has shoulder length black hair.  
**


	3. Two Reaping

**I have pretty much all the forms lol. I just took forever because I've been doing a martial arts course with the Marines and they had this old-timer attitude about "you have to EARN it lol" and they do insane workouts so I've been going to bed at 7:30 XD**

* * *

Sagar Dewpont- District Two male

Two was the purest District in Panem. I didn't mean some backwards racist way, like we had purer blood somehow. I just meant we were the most authentic. In Two, you got what you earned. It was a pure meritocracy. The better-equipped were rightly ranked the highest, and those that couldn't execute were relegated to lower lives. People in Two weren't inherently better than people in other Districts, but we were credited based on our accomplishments, and that individual freedom and incentive was why we had more Victors than any other District.

I greatly looked forward to my time in the Games. Everyone would be looking at me and seeing how well I was performing. When I brought home victory for Two, I would come home to crowds of people clamoring to thank me. As for the killing part, it wasn't the big draw, but I didn't mind it. When you went into the Arena, you weren't a kid anymore. You were an opponent. I don't kill kids, but I kill opponents.

There was only one thing standing between me and the Arena: Dew Dreschel.

Dew wasn't a better Academy student than I was. Some people just didn't see it that way. Some of the instructors were always going on and on about him. His sword skills. His run times. His reaction times. All the times they said he beat me at sparring, and the one time he actually did, since I tripped over a spear someone left out. Over and over they gushed over him, leaving me neglected and overlooked. I was the one that deserved to go. The ones that couldn't see that were just wrong. When the volunteers were announced and they picked him over me, I was sincerely surprised. I was the right choice. It was obvious. I wasn't some egotistical blowhard who thought I was the best at everything, but I was the best at being a Career. I didn't understand how they didn't see that, and it infuriated me.

I tried to do it the clean way. I met with my instructors and explained my case. When they weren't listening, I made an appointment with the headmaster and explained it to him. I thought he would get it and it seemed at first that he did. He admitted I excelled across the board. Then he started talking about Drew's "advantages" and my eyes glazed over. I hadn't wanted to take it this far, but they left me no choice.

Four days later, when Drew picked up his gym bag, a syringe fell out. The instructor tried to pretend he didn't see it, but some of the students did, and every one of them raised hell. Drew was hauled off protesting and screaming to the nurse's office, where he was told he could provide a sample or be expelled. It would have looked mighty suspicious if the test had turned up clean. But if the test would turn up clean Drew wouldn't have been protesting. Of course he tested positive. Every student in the Academy would test positive if we did random drug tests. That was why we stopped doping three weeks before the Games- to pass the tests we always did two weeks before the Games.

I wouldn't have had to do it if they'd just seen reason. Drew was seventeen, like me. He could have gone next year. We both could have won. They just had to try to cheat me out of what I deserved. They insulted me and made a victim out of me. That I could never tolerate.

* * *

Medusa Gorgona- District Two female

At some point in our lives, we've all run across someone that was just irredeemable. Someone who killed twenty kids or set a cat on fire. We look at them and feel this primal disgust and hatred and think of what torture we'd inflict on them if we ever met them. But do we ever stop and think that no matter how fucked up someone is, something made them that way? It's still their fault they set that cat on fire. Someone abusing you doesn't absolve you abusing someone else. But the fact remains that they wouldn't be like that if whatever happened to make them into what they were hadn't happened. They used to be kids, too. At some point, if you go back far enough, they were innocent. They just didn't get to stay that way.

When I was little, I loved make-believe. I made stories about unicorns and dragons and faraway lands with purple skies and grand adventures. Then something happened. It wasn't even something big. I know what kind of person I am, and I know what happened to make me what I am. It was something so small. It was nothing but my hair. It didn't matter that I was far from the first person to have bushy, frizzy hair. It didn't matter that it looked like my mother's and I always thought hers was so beautiful. There was no logic behind it. It was just what the children found to latch onto and cast someone out so they could be secure in their own positions. I still remember the day I told myself my last pretend story. I stopped in the middle and never told another one after I realized that the heroine of the story had straight hair.

My flowing imagination hardened into jagged sarcasm. I was still as quick and creative with words. I just used them to attack instead of brighten. I flung them like knives so no one could get close. And still that wouldn't have been enough to make me into the kind of person we wonder about and hate. It's never one moment like in the stories. It's a thousand cuts until you bleed dry.

The next cut was the cruelest, since it was a mercy. I started training with Stheno because my sister loved me and cared for me. I treasured the time I spent with her in the Academy. It was the best part of my day, and I never realized that what I was learning from her was her cruelest parts. I didn't see the darkness when I won my first sparring session by sticking a training knife into my opponent's face. I only heard Stheno's praise and excitement for my accomplishment.

Even that wouldn't have been enough. Despite my training and my wounds, I still cared about humanity. I hated my bullies for what they did, but I still valued life. I still saw the beauty in people. I saw people building each other up, like the days I sat with my sister Euryale sculpting things that it used to be I would tell stories about.

The last one cut me past all hope. It wasn't one cut that broke me, but it was one day. I was training one night. Most people had gone home. Poe, the bodybuilding instructor, hadn't. Everything I need to know about humans I learned from him. Anyone will do to any other person anything he thinks he can get away with. Destroying something is infinitely easier than creating something. Creation will never have a prayer of catching up. The inner light that flickers in a person is as fragile as a sheet of glass and there is no replacing it. Humans shatter. We destroy. We hurt past all healing with the callousness of an animal. My light was gone in the blink of an eye. There was nothing left but cold, dark, empty hate.

Hate. Hate. Hate. Let me hurt. Let others hurt like they hurt me. I'll kill them all and I'll dance on their graves in the crown I win from their blood. Let me hate so hard there's no room for any other feeling. Some of the irredeemable ones know they're not the good guys. I am responsible for my actions and I choose this. When people look at me, they'll shiver at the things humans are willing to do. It used to be I'd shiver too.

* * *

**Sagar: looks a lot like some guy named Omar Borkan al Gala**

**Medusa: dark skin, deep brown eyes, and brown curly hair that was once more poofy but she keeps it a little tamer due to bullying. Looks a lot like Zazie Beetz  
**


	4. Three Reaping

Ryx Marker- District Three male

"Who can tell me the answer?"

My hand shot into the air, along with a few other students'. Mr. Ducklow looked over the raised hands. I strained extra high when he was looking at me, leaning sideways out of my seat, but he didn't pause. He looked over my head and smiled.

"Ada?" he asked.

Ada? I turned around to see her in her chair. Ada hardly ever raised her hand. She wasn't dumb or anything, but she wasn't really the kind to take a risk in front of everyone. She leaned forward in her chair to give her answer.

"April ninth, 1861," she said. I felt a little thrill. That was the wrong answer. I had another chance.

"Close," Mr. Ducklow said. "Who can add some more-"

My hand shot back up. Mr. Ducklow smiled.

"All right, Ryx. What else can you add?"

"It was April in 1861, but it was the twelfth," I said. "April ninth was when the war ended. It started on the twelfth when General Beauregarde shot at Fort Sumter."

"Awesome answer," Mr. Ducklow said. "After that, President Lincoln..." I wasn't listening as he went on. I already knew most of what he was talking about, since I'd been reading ahead for weeks. I liked to study super hard before we got to a subject. That way I always knew the answers. I wiggled a little in my chair, pleased that I'd done well for Mr. Ducklow again. It was very important to me to make sure I was always his best student. I loved how he would always look at me if no one else raised their hands. Usually I raised my hand too, but sometimes I let other people have their moments, and only came in if they were wrong or didn't tell everything.

Later, when we sat down in groups to write three paragraphs on why the war started, I took the tablet for my group and started typing our paragraphs.

"I already know a lot, so I can write it," I said.

"Of course you know a lot," Neo said in a peevish tone, his arms folded. "You always know a lot."

"It's just what I'm good at," I said. I started to write.

The American Civil war was the result of variegated contentious disputes. The aforementioned conflicts were largely the result of cultural contradictions between the agricultural South and the industrial North...

"What does 'variegated' mean?" Tungsten asked.

"It means 'various'. Like, a lot of different reasons," I said.

"Why didn't you just say there were a lot of reasons?" Tungsten asked.

"Because that didn't sound smart enough," Neo objected.

"I'm not going to hold myself back because some people can't keep up," I said.

"No one wants to keep up with you. Then we would have to be near you," Neo said. Tungsten nodded along. Marie, who was always congenial and full of amity, discreetly looked away.

"Let's just get this written," she said.

Fine, I thought. And I'll keep writing in, since I'm the only one here who actually knows what we've been learning about. I didn't care if none of my partners did any work. Mr. Ducklow would see my paragraphs and give me an A, like I always got. It didn't matter if I didn't have any friends and everyone teased me. Someone thought I was smart.

* * *

Andrea "Dr" "Dre" D'Amour- District Three female

"Go ahead and ease into crane apose. Fold your left leg and stand centered on your flat right foot. Arms together, hands in the center of your chest. Take nice, deep breaths and focus on your breathing. No need to rush. Let it flow naturally."

Yoga was the best exercise for me. Why? Because it's nice and slow. That means you can talk! Yoga was a chance to hang out with friends and do something productive at the same time as you caught up with them and talked about anything you wanted. You came out feeling fresher in your body and your soul.

"Are you going to do yoga in the hospital when you start?" Kassia asked me after the yoga session was over.

"Yeah, of course! It's super good for you, especially for people who are too fragile to do heavier stuff," I said.

"Take me with you," Kassia said jokingly, but only kind of jokingly. She fist-bumped my shoulder.

"Aw, I'm not really staying," I said. "The Capitol's not for me. I'm going to be going crazy after a week."

"But it's the Capitol," Kassia said. "Dresses and candy and jewels..." She twirled around.

"Eh. I'm more of a sand and beach and open air kind of person," I said. I put a hand to my forehead and stopped walking.

"I'm getting a vision," I said. "I see the future... my future. I see me working in the Capitol in a dazzling white hospital. It's super boring. I see me retiring as soon as I can afford it. I see me buying a little beach hut in four and teaching yoga on the beach. I'm super happy... and tan."

"You see anything about the Reaping?" Kassia asked.

"Sorry, fortune telling isn't an exact science," I said.

"What if you get Reaped? Will it still happen then?" Kassia asked.

"Of course!" I giggled like it wasn't even something to be worried about. Truthfully, it was the only thing to be worried about. The fortune-telling thing was kind of a joke, but it was also kind of real. It was a little hobby of mine to try to predict the future based on a combination of what I knew about someone, a little intuition, and a good helping of luck. I really did see all that stuff about the hospital and the beach hut in Four. And it was also true that fortune-telling wasn't an exact science, but it wasn't entirely true the way I said it. I did see something about the Reaping. More accurately, I saw nothing. I had no idea if I would get Reaped or not, but if I did, I saw nothing. No future at all. I knew exactly what that meant.

* * *

**Ryx: messy red hair and blue eyes. 4'11. Caucasian with pale skin. He has a lot of freckles and glasses.**

**Andrea: Her parents' ancestry is from France, but she identifies as being Middle Eastern since her birth mother's family is from Kabul. She has fairish skin and a dotting of light freckles across her face. Andrea has bright green eyes and wavy, sandy brown hair that reaches to her waist. She is around 5'4 and weighs 120 pounds.  
Dr. Dre is long forgotten in Panem LOL. Andrea's nickname is a coincidence**


	5. Four Reaping

Cyrene Longuemare- District Four female

Everyone says they'll do anything to win. Far fewer live lives that back it up. And among those that do, few of us are actually doing it because we're just that iron-willed and dauntless. Wolves don't gnaw their legs off out of ambition. They do it out of sheer desperation. What I did, I did because there was no better option.

The Career Districts think they're playing the Capitol, but the Capitol is playing us. They get young adults trained from birth to kill. And who do they kill? The outer Districts. The ones with the most to gain from rebelling. We cull their undesirables and we become the enemy to the outliers. The Capitol is a faceless, unbeatable juggernaut the outer Districts don't dare to think about defying. Six Careers are a scourge that each year can conceivably be outplayed by a canny underdog. We're their pyrrhic sacrifice.

I knew all that and I was still allied with the Capitol. Like I said, there was no better option. Like the scientist in a horror story admiring the horrible alien's "perfect hunter physique", I acknowledged their position. The best way to get power and influence wasn't to oppose the Capitol. It was to serve them. Capitolites were people. Districters were resources. If I wanted to go from powerless to empowered, I had to be part of the Capitol. The only way up, the only possible chance for a Districter to be truly accepted as a Capitolite, was to kill for them. We could prove our worth by being their bullet shield and telling them how grateful we were for the opportunity. My future belonged to the Capitol. If I was part of the Capitol, my future belonged to me.

Funny thing was, I hadn't settled on Career at first. I settled on Peacekeeper. Graduation from the Peacekeeper Academy would indelibly stamp me as loyal. I would get assigned an undesirable job in the outer Districts at first, but I could work my way up and eventually... even the Capitol needed Peacekeepers. Bribery or favors could get my residency permanent.

That was my plan, up until my family ruined it. My brother vandalized the Justice Building in a brainless display of youthful rebellion. That alone could have been enough to get us jailed, but Karl must have affected our other siblings, since Genesis reacted to the increased pressure by printing half a dozen anti-Capitol posters. I hadn't seen my family in months, since they were in jail, awaiting possible execution and more likely Avoxing. Guess they might see the Capitol after all. That's when I learned I was one of the few who actually would do anything to win. As a promising Peacekeeper Academy cadet, I was given a shred of the benefit of the doubt. I was told to disown my family for clemency. I did. Instead of jail, I was drummed out of the Academy.

That's how I came to be a volunteer. My training transferred from riots to the anarchy of the Arena. I would never be chosen as the volunteer, but if I volunteered without being chosen, they would let the trash take itself out. The board had shifted wildly from where it was meant to be, but the game wasn't lost. I was still moving pieces and I was still gaining ground.

* * *

Percy Mordecai- District Four male

Tyson was the best boyfriend in the world. He put up with me even though most people woud have given up long ago. He put up with my mood swings and my irrational moments. Most people could never love me, but Tyson stayed. He knew I was hard to get along with and hard to love, but he stayed anyway. Most people would have left by now, but Tyson still loved me. He put up with my angry moments and the times when I felt like I was so mad I just had to destroy something, even if it had nothing to do with why I was mad.

Gaudius was looking terrible. I know the Capitolites love plastic surgery and all but he was looking bad. If I looked like that I'd be ashamed to leave the room. But what Capitolites lack in self-awareness they make up in self-confidence. So Gaudius' stiff face and his stretched-tight skin stepped forward and took a name out of the bowl.

"Tyson Burbank!" he called.

No. Tyson didn't deserve this. I did- I mean, I was a terrible boyfriend. I always had emotions and irrational reactions and just baggge that Tyson had to deal with. But not Tyson. He was such a good guy for staying with me even though I didn't deserve a guy in his leage. Tyson was such a saint for staying with me.

Tyson stood on the stage next to Gaudius. He was almost catatonic with fear. He was crying like I'd never seen him cry and he was finally calling in all he'd done for me.

"Percy! Percy, help me!" he screamed. "I don't deserve this!"

No, he didn't. He was a perfect boyfriend and I had always been a burden on him. I heard him talking and his words pierced right to my heart. Nothing he was saying was wrong. I did deserve this more than him.

"Do we have any volunteers?" Gaudius asked.

I wasn't sure about God but I sure prayed in those minutes. We had an Academy but Tyson had taken three semesters there. In Four, we weren't as fanatical as One and Two. If it seemed like the Reaped ones might have a chance, we didn't volunteer. And Tyson was so strong. Of course he had a chance. Just not enough.

Tyson's eyes found me in the crowd. He deserved this. He did so much for me when I wasn't worth any of it. I was just the useless brother of a volunteer who disgraced himself in the one Games he might have had a chance in. Mordecai was anathema in Four. It was an embarrassment to be known for him. But Tyson was worth so much. He deserved this.

"I volunteer as Tribute!"

It was the least I could do. Tyson loved me when I was unlovable. He stayed with me when there was nothing keeping him there. And when he rarely lost his patience, he wasn't saying anything that wasn't true. I was a terrible person. I was not worth staying for. And he was a saint for staying anyway. He deserved better than me.

Tyson didn't even look at me as he ran offstage. He was such a good person. He was sad I was going to die, even though I wasn't anything worth crying over. He didn't deserve such heartache. i hoped he didn't worry about me. I was glad when he took his place with the other boy his age and didn't look at me again. Sure, I was going to die. I didn't have any skills that would keep me alive. But that didn't matter. It was worth it if he stayed safe.

* * *

**Cyrene: : Cyrene's a tall, dark brunette who has cold eyes and looks like she knows something you don't. She stands at about five feet and seven inches and weighs around 120 pounds, and looks quite athletic. Decent muscle mass, and she keeps her hair cropped to above her shoulders. Cyrene has blue eyes and deeply tanned skin, her complexion being a mixture of Hispanic and Caucasian. **

**Percy: Percy stands at 5 feet and 10 inches. He has tan skin, dark brown hair with black highlights, and blue eyes.**


	6. Six Reaping

**The Five submitters aren't being slow, I just left one slot unfilled in case I double-booked. Now I'm going through the waitlist, so that's why it wasn't ready yet.**

* * *

Antonio "Tony" Gear- District Six male

My hand jerked away at the sudden cutting pain. I hadnt even noticed the shard of glass embedded in the car's dented bumper. I took my hand in my other hand and examined the palm. The glass was visible sticking out of the cut. It made me queasy. Blood was kind of welling up around it- not fast, just oozing.

_It's nothing. Just a little cut,_ I told myself. But for once, I wasn't convincing anyone. I _hated_ cuts. Not that anyone really likes them, but it was more intense for me. I had a higher pain tolerance than most people, but I also felt things more acutely. I tried to tell myself it didn't really hurt. My hand wasn't fooled. It hurt. It stung and throbbed and felt like a tiny little fire burning in my skin. Some people are good at taking pain. I really wasn't one of them. I also wasn't good at seeing blood. It always brought pain with it.

I wiped the cut off and spread some antiseptic from our little garage first aid kit on it. As I did I wondered if it was expired and made a note to get more someday. But it didn't matter that much. I had a really strong immune system.

As I was putting the first aid kit back on its hook on the wall, Catullus walked into the open bay doors of the garage. Most of our customers were Peacekeepers, since it wasn't often someone other than a Peacekeeper could afford their own car. Sure, we did taxis and things too, but most Six citizens would do any repair they possibly could on their own before spending money on a mechanic.

"Hey, what's up?" Catullus asked just to make some small talk. "Is it gonna be ready by the end of the week?" he asked, patting the hood of the car.

"Yeah, no problem. It's a pretty easy fix," I said.

"Really? This whole big piece is dented," he said, pointing to the warped sheet of metal from the fender bender.

"It's not as bad as it looks. Besides, we're just that good," I shrugged. "That's why you always come here."

"You always do this," Maxon said as soon as Catullus left.

"Do what?" I asked.

"Overpromise. You know there's no way we can get that fixed in a week," he said.

I looked back at the damage and made an unimpressed face. "I can do it," I said.

"If you could do half the things you think you can do you wouldn't be stuck in a run-down garage in Six," Maxon said.

"What do you even care? It's not your business," I said. My brother had no interest in the family livelihood. He just liked the money.

"I'll never be a Peacekeeper if you keep antagonizing our customers. Who are Peacekeepers," Maxon said.

"Oh, you'll do fine," I said. "You're strong and all that. Just like I'll do fine here. We're going to do great things, both of us. We were meant for it."

* * *

Siobhan Hearse- District Six female

Ella and I were in my room playing dress-up. We didn't have much to work with, but we made up for it by using whatever we could find lying around as accessories. Feather duster? More like fashionable hat.

"Look at these two beautiful women," Ella said as we looked at each other in the mirror.

I took a harder look and scrunched my face. "You know, sometimes I don't feel like a girl," I said.

"You feel like a boy?" Ella asked, half jokey and half intrigued.

"No, not a boy either," I said. I looked at the chest just starting to poke out that my mother said would need a bra soon. At the crazy poofy hair so wild and huge it didn't tell you anything about the person underneath it. The mishmash of clothes I'd chosen, from a skirt over a pair of pants to a clip on plastic earring on just one ear. Soon I'd start growing into an adult. I liked my body just the way it was. I didn't want to start getting all lumpy and big. I was perfect this way.

"What do you feel like then?" Ella asked.

"I think..." I said. I shrugged. "...Just Siobhan."

"Well then it's good your parents named you that!" Ella said. She giggled and threw herself onto my bed.

"Let's play trains!" I said. I ran to the middle of my room, where my train set was still spreading out. It grew slowly, since we didn't have that much money, but I took every opportunity. Birthdays, perfect report cards for a semester, babysitting money... trains. More tracks, more trains, little traffic signs with blinking lights. Against the wall, my bookshelf was overflowing with library books about trains.

"You always want to play trains," Ella said, but she wasn't mad. She liked trains too, just not as much as I did. And we played other things, too. Trains was just my favorite. I'd already shown her the new train I'd just gotten. It was a hybrid coal-solar engine from before we got good enough with energy and stuff to not need to burn fuel. I was glad they were cleaner and everything, but it would have been cool to ride on the trains back when they still shot smoke everywhere.

Ella and I made train noises as we pushed the trains around. Trains nowadays don't make that noise, but you have to make train noises if you're going to play with trains. I liked to read about the history of trains and see how they were put together. I also liked to crash them off the tracks and scatter dolls around while Ella and I made exploding noises and screamed. Someday I'd like to work with trains. I'd like to design new ones and put them together and see the big slabs of metal and parts formed a massive behemoth that shot all the way across the country like a giant bullet. I'd also like to be the one to honk the horn.

* * *

**Antonio: Tall (6ft 4) and muscular (toned would be a better word). Piercing grey eyes and grown-out blonde hair (to his ears). He is a good-looking man. He slicks his hair back a lot of the time for his work but will wear it down at the Capitol.**

**Siobhan: Looks like Nneka Ibeabuchi but younger and shorter**


	7. Five Reaping

**Ha ha I finally added the ages to the first chapter so now they make sense.**

* * *

Aurelia Jackson- District Five female

My grandpa was older than he should be. He was only sixty-three, but he looked older than that. He always had a shadow on him, like there was a ghost pulling him down. It pulled him down so he didn't stand straight and so his face was wrinkled and worn. He got mad a lot, but I knew it wasn't really whatever he was glaring at. He was mad at something from a long time ago that all the glaring in the world couldn't help.

But he never got mad at me. Even when I asked him for help on my homework and he explained it eight times and I still didn't understand. I knew he was frustrated that sometimes it seemed like I coudn't even read. But he was never mad at me, just sad at how hard it was for me. That was why I asked him for help and not my mother. Mom would have helped, but I was always afraid she would think I was stupid. I was stupid sometimes, or at least not very good at learning things. I knew Grandpa didn't think that.

Sometimes I felt like I was like Grandpa. I got jittery sometimes just like he did. Every once in a while if there was a sudden noise Grandpa would jump three feet in the air like he was a teenager again. It wasn't sudden things that made me nervous. It was constant for me. I just always felt a little edgy, like there was something I should be scared of and I couldn't tell what. That was part of the reason why I talked so much. Talking was doing something. It made me feel like I was getting something done. Grandpa didn't talk much. He would sit and listen to me talk for a long time, even if it was about something silly.

I got nervous a lot and Grandpa had a hard life, but there were still lots of good things in the world. I was getting through school. Maybe not with very good grades, but not the worst grades. I was passing all my classes. Mom was really proud of me for that. I knew things could be better someday if I worked hard and prayed hard. I prayed a lot, since I worried a lot about all the rules I broke and the things I did wrong. I wasn't too good at going to the gatherings or following the rules all the time, so I tried to make up for it by praying a lot. I prayed that I would do well in school, and that Dad would be happy in the underworld, and I prayed a lot for Grandpa. Grandpa didn't believe in any of the stuff me and Mom did, but he was still happy whenever I told him I prayed for him. I liked it when he smiled.

In the stories we told at the gatherings, the heroes always had to go through a lot of trouble before they had happy endings. Hercules had to do all his labors and Aphrodite straight up got eaten by her own father before she broke loose. The things that were hard for me, like schoolwork and being scared a lot, could actually be a good thing. I always prayed that I would keep trying and get through them, and I made sure that I lived my life in a way that did that, too. After all, the gods help those who help themselves. There were a lot of things that were hard for me and Grandpa, but that wouldn't stop us. It didn't stop him from being a great grandpa. I wouldn't let it stop me from being big someday too.

* * *

Remus Ray- District Five male

YOU ARE WHO YOU ARE  
By Remus Ray

_You are who you are! No one else can tell you._  
_Only you know who you are inside._  
_Some people say you have to be like this or like that._  
_No no no!_  
_You are who you are._  
_It doesn't matter what you look like._  
_It doesn't matter what you sound like._  
_Maybe you look like a cat_  
_But you're actually a dog!_  
_And people say 'No no no! You can't play fetch and go on walks! You're a cat!'_  
_No no no!_  
_You're a_ dog!  
_Be a dog!_  
_You can try to sleep in a cat bed, but you won't fit._  
_You can try eating cat food, but it will be yucky._  
_If you try to be something else, maybe it will look right, but it won't be right._  
_It will just make you sad._  
_So be what you are._  
_If everyone else gets mad, they're just wrong._  
_They don't see what you really are._  
_Don't listen to them._  
_Only you know what you are._  
_You're you. No one else is you. You're not wrong. You're the best you ever._

Over and over I read the picture book I'd written on sheaves of white cardboard. I'd written it, but I didn't really know what it meant. I know how it made me feel- like I was missing the most important piece of my life and didn't know where to look. I knew if I showed it to anyone else they would say it was ugly. They thought I was like anyone else. The ending of my book seemed to happy. It was so impossibly, painfully beautiful. Maybe someday I wouldn't be stuck in the middle, right at "No! No! No!" Maybe someday I'd find the ending.

* * *

**Aurelia: Millie Bobby Brown**

**Remus: Remus is tall and willowy, at about 5'10. A fairly pretty face - mixed white and Latino with hazel eyes and sand-colored hair with white streaks from stress.  
**


	8. Seven Reaping

Rigel Aspen- District Seven male

There was a new group of faces in the forest today. People came and went as they got burned out or injured. We looped back and forth from the rigors and openness of the tree-felling grounds to the easier but insanely monotonous work in the lumberyards cutting the trunks down into planks. There were a few people I'd never seen before, or at least couldn't remember seeing, which was nice. It's always nice to meet new people.

One of the biggest draws of the felling grounds was there was less supervision and more talk. Workers could chat as they used manual axes to work through the massive trunks of still-standing trees. We were all the same social class and educational background, so we tended to fall into the same topics. One of which was a bet.

"How tall you think this tree is?" Jack asked his friend Carver.

"A hundred and twenty feet," Carver guessed, looking up the tree to gauge it.

"Nah, it's gotta be a hundred fifty," Leif judged.

"No way. _This_ tree? A hundred, tops," Jack said.

"Oh, really?" Carver asked. "Loser buys lunch?"

"Pfft, I'd be a fool _not_ to take _that_ bet," Jack said.

I looked up at the tree, setting my axe down by my feet. I was alone on my side of the thick trunk, since I tended to work faster than the others. That was what happened when you were six and a half feet tall and built like Babe the Blue Ox. The others stood clear of me. I didn't have much to say usually, and they didn't want my wood chips getting in their eyes. A twig fell down from near the top of the tree, which was covered in deceptively fluffy greenery, making it hard to gauge the tree's height. I checked my watch.

"What about you?" Leif turned to me after the arguing had gone on for a moment. He had a jokey smile. "How tall is it?"

"Two hundred and forty feet," I said. The others cracked up laughing.

"Trust Rigel to come up with an answer like that," Carver said, wheezing. The argument went on without me until the tree finally fell. We shouted the warnings, scattered in the pattern we'd learned in orientation, and watched the tree come thundering to the ground. Leif ran over to measure it.

"Well?" Carver asked.

"I'll be darned," Leif said when he was done. "Two hundred and twenty-seven feet. How'd you come up with that number anyway?" he asked, turning to me.

I shrugged. "That branch took about seven seconds to hit the ground from pretty near the top. H equals one-half 9.8 meters/second squared times the time it takes to fall squared. I didn't do all the adding right, though. I'm not very smart."

* * *

Katrina Moonshadow- District Seven female

_Four years ago_

I hated it when my dad had to go.

"Why do you have to go?" I asked, even though I knew. I just wanted to keep saying things because then he had to answer and he couldn't leave.

Dad hefted his gun on his hip and stopped by the door. When I'd first seen the rifle I freaked out. Guns were super _duper_ illegal and I only even knew what one looked like from the Peacekeepers. Turned out it wasn't exactly a gun. That was how Dad described it. It was an air rifle. It fired little pellets that were so small and slow they couldn't hurt a person. They were just big enough to hunt the mutts the Capitol paid Dad to get rid of. They'd taken care of all the big ones, but some of the little pesty ones were so small there were a few left. That was Dad shot.

"I'm sorry, sweetie. You want to do some target practice when I get back? You're getting so good," Dad said. It didn't really distract me, but I pretended it did. I knew Dad hated leaving me and felt bad about it. I didn't really want to make him feel worse. I just wanted him to stay. I waved at him as he walked into the woods.

I knew it was coming. I knew _he_ was coming. I'd never told Dad about him, since Mom told me not to. She said Julius was a friend who just liked coming by to see us. If Julius was a friend, why was Mom never happy right after Dad left? Why did Julius never come see us when Dad was here so he could meet Dad? And why had Mom been sending me to my room when he was around more and more as I got older? It hadn't escaped my notice that I'd never heard my mother invite Julius over. He just kept showing up.

Julius was Mom's and my secret. I didn't know much about why he kept coming here but I knew it would be really bad if Dad ever found out. Julius was a Peacekeeper and they could do whatever they wanted. A lot of them liked to kill people. Otherwise they wouldn't arrest people for stupid little things all the time. Dad wouldn't like that he kept bothering Mom. He would try to stop it, but you can't stop a Peacekeeper.

I knew Dad had a job, but I couldn't think of any reason it would be so important he had to leave all the time. He used the money he got to buy food and things, but I wouldn't mind eating less or living with another family in our house if it meant he could be home more often. Dad only worked so hard because he wanted to take care of us. But when he left to take care of us, that was when something came to hurt us.

* * *

**Rigel: Very tall. 6'6. Heavily muscled arms, and rest of body very toned from working as a lumberjack. Sandy blonde hair and grey eyes. Tanned skin from working outdoors**

**Katrina: Kat is of Turkish descent and complexion, with short-cropped red hair. At 5'3" in height, she's slimly built and beautiful.**


	9. Eight Reaping

Fryderyk Zieliński- District Eight male  
It was like the last note of a song. You were sad because it was over, but you wouldn't have given up listening to it for the pain it left. It was like hearing that last note for the first time and knowing the song would only ever be that way once. You could hear it again and again, but it would never again be as sweet as the first time, when it was new. And as you're hearing it, you feel a growing sense of melancholy with each note, because each note brings you closer to the end. When you hear that rising crescendo, you know it's the end, far before the last note fades in the air. That was what it was like to fall out of love with Cerise.

The ivory keys were cool under my fingers as they came to rest. The last note lingering in the air was similarly cold. I'd just composed the song I was playing, and composition was nothing if not the transference of emotions from thoughts to notes. I listened to the faint vibration in the air until there was nothing.

The knock on the door was a welcome disruption. Francis and Mari let themselves in. They'd come to do that as it became more difficult for me to rise quickly.

"where's Cerise?" Mari asked.

"She's not here," I said. _Isn't that true?_ I thought. She wasn't with me like she had been.

"Everything okay?" Mari asked.

"I want to break up with her." It rolled from my mouth with the ease of a scale. It was painful to say, but it wasn't difficult. Emotions flowed in and out of me like wind in a door.

"Oh," Francis said simply. He sat down on the other side of the piano bench and looked at the far wall of the room. He didn't try to say some simple truism that wouldn't mean anything. I started to play another song. It was mournful but not maudlin. If music filled the air, words didn't have to.

_Romance. What a multifaceted word_. "Romantic" was probably the word that applied more to me than any other word. Not erotic romance, though I_ did_ fall in love easily. Just not just erotic romance. I was romantic in the classical sense of the word. Mercurial. Passionate. Emotional and not ashamed of it. Emotions are the color for our souls. Without them life would be grayscale. Yes, I was certainly romantic.

It seemed to seep into all my relationships as well. It was a marvel the four of us were still fast friends. I knew Francis had feelings for Cerise. It was kind of him to keep them so hidden, though someone as attuned to emotion as I was could tell. It would be difficult at first if he pursued her once we were apart, but I hoped they would be happy. I knew that Cerise had also considered Francis before I made advances. And funny enough, I'd had moments that had the shadow of something more with Francis. And Mari... Mari had enough love for everyone. She was loyal when a partner desired it, but it was all the same to her whether she had Francis, Francis and me, or maybe even both of us and Cerise as well. It was utterly certain that there was no shortage of romance between the four of us.

So many possibilities. When I looked out into the future, it was infinite. Dozens of students here with me. An old flame I'd left behind when the boarding school accepted me. But no matter what, music. I would write for whoever I ended up with, or I would write for myself if I was alone. Friends and romances came and went, but I would always have my music.

* * *

Cerise Dupin- District Eight female

Louis Clay's novel lay on the paper before me. The heroine, Antonia Cather, was musing about her attentions being divided between the covert printing press she hid from her village and her romantic interest, the nobleman Gilles Dauphin. Antonia cared for Gilles, but she had only one life and wanted to use it to its fullest. Gilles was kind and sensitive, but life for him was something to be listened to and enjoyed. It wasn't something to be seized and used and squeezed of every drop. He was content to visit with his wealthy friends and live gently. Contentment was not what Antonia wanted. She loved Gilles, but though it pained her to admit, he held her back.

The writing wasn't terrible. The characters were defined and were starting to grow and chance. But I didn't like the writing. Why? Because Antonia Cather sounded a lot like me. Gilles Dauphin sounded a lot like Fryderyk. And as much as Louis Clay was trying to be original, I couldn't keep my life out of my novel. My stories were supposed to incite change and drive people to action. They weren't supposed to be daydreams about how my life could turn out if I could just write myself a happy ending and make it so.

"Hey," Francis called through the window. "You busy?"

"No, come on in," I called. I got up and ran to let him and Mari in.

"We just came from Fryderyk's," Mari said.

"Oh, that's nice. How is he?" I asked.

"Pretty good. He wasn't coughing or anything," Francis said.

"That's good," I said. Of course someone with his temperament would be prone to respiratory ailments. It was right out of the kind of book he pored over- the delicate Byronic hero felled by chronic consumption. But it wasn't consumption. That we could cure. Cystic Fibrosis we were still working on.

Francis and Mari seemed troubled about something. I would have asked, but I was preoccupied with Fryderyk. He was a good person. Maybe I wasn't in love with him anymore, but I still loved him. I didn't want to hurt him. I knew it would hurt when I broke up with him. Things had been distant between us and I suspected I wasn't the only one thinking it over, but he would still get hit harder than I would. I had to find a good time and a gentle way to do it.

_We had a lot of good times_, I thought as I went over them. We felt things hard and we loved hard. We talked about futures together and how we'd still think the other was attractive when we were old and gray. He talked about a well-kept house and having dinner ready for me every night. I talked about doing great things all my life and always knowing I would come home to a man who loved me and would keep me grounded. None of that would ever come to be. Perhaps one or both of us would find someone else, but it would not be what we would have had. Better, maybe, but not the same.

I had loved Fryderyk and I would always care for him. But unlike him, romance didn't define me. Fryderyk was content to be but I needed to act. We lived in a gilded cage. It was better than what most of Panem had, but I would not live in a cage. I could not be content until we owned our lives. Not until the government was not a golden city on a hill but present in every town and owned by each countryman. So I wielded my pen. It was a pen that wrote the Capitol into existence and it would be a pen that destroyed them. Guns they could take. Freedom they could take. But they would never stop my words.

* * *

**Fryderyk: Polish descent. He has fair skin, long brown hair, and dark brown eyes. He is 5'6" and underweight**

**Cerise: French descent. She has fair skin, brown hair that she wears in a short low ponytail, and large dark brown eyes. She is short (5'1"), not particularly pretty, and hates dresses and skirts with a passion.  
**


	10. Nine Reaping

Arthur Harrington- District Nine male

Anyone who saw me from the back would have thought I was an old man. My shriveled body clung in on itself when I walked. I stood drawn in and leaned forward, like a stalk of corn dried up by the sun and starting to curl inward. My hair was still thick, but it had no shine. It was like a dull coat of paint. If I started to look at someone, they'd see the gaunt cheekbones spiderwebbed with lines before they saw my child's face.

There was no sun in the basement cell I paced in. For an agrarian District, I lived an indoor life. Our sun was the glare of a flourescent light. Our fresh air was the flour dust that clogged our lungs and stung our eyes. Day and night were marked by the screech of a shift whistle. And for the last three days, I'd had none of that. I'd had the stone cell, the four hundred and thirty-nine ceiling tiles, and the tapping of my feet. I kept a tally of the taps. It kept me grounded, gave me something I had control over. Tap, tap, tap, until the door finally opened.

"Ready to get back to work?" Overseer Sod asked.

"Uh-huh," I assented. I looked at him plainly as I waited for his response. There were a lot more things I wanted to say, but I only wanted to say them if they would matter. I wanted out of here, but the only way out was through a lot of waiting. Waiting for the right minute, waiting until everything was lined up, waiting for my tiny pile of money to add up one cent at a time until I could run from this place and never look back.

I jostled into Overseer Sod as we walked up the narrow stone staircase connecting the basement to the factory above. He shoved me aside like a farmer pushing back a sheep that got too close. That's all he thought of any of us. We weren't even animals, we were just machines to do work to get him money. I was safe to do what I did because it never would have entered his mind that a machine had the capability to pick his pocket.

A scream pierced the walls. It didn't break my stride. Someone caught their hand in a machine, or someone didn't work quickly enough. Other screams punctuated our walk up the stairs. Some of them I recognized. Plenty of my coworkers knew my scream. The supervisors had lined my back with scars over the years, but when they walked by I didn't flinch.

We reached the factory floor and I looked into Hell. Stifling waves of heat from machines and closely packed bodies. Uniformed monsters wielding whips and truncheons. It wasn't legal what they were doing, but the devil doesn't need permission.

I looked from one side of the factory to another. The first scream from the staircase started up again. My eyes followed the noise to a boy younger than I was. That was why it was so high-pitched. The boy's voice hadn't broken yet. He was barely visible behind the supervisor's legs. I looked at the boy and in a flash I saw the way out of Hell. Because anything was better than this, even a one in twenty-four chance.

* * *

Camille Igawa- District Nine female

Ever eaten Hoot Loops? Flakeys? Pumkin Mumkins? On behalf of my parents, you're welcome.

_Poor little rich girl,_ bleeding-heart types might say. I knew how it was. I was privileged. _Madly_ privileged. When most people want cereal they buy a box, not a company. I used to live in my fancy house, doing my fancy activities and associating with fancy people. Then I finally went outside and _realized_ I was fancy. That not everyone lived with this. It was hard to learn, but I never looked back.

A sea of black looked back at me when I opened my closet. I used to wear the frilly dresses and the pretty things my parents loved. I got into "alternative" to make them mad. I stayed because the more I looked into it, the more I realized goth shouldn't be a phase. It should be an aesthetic. It's not about shocking people. It's about acknowledging that darkness exists but appreciating that there's beauty in it. It expands the definition of what beauty can be. It's a contrast to most of the world. It's something different. For me, it was an entirely new skin. It was a way to make myself someone else. In my rich girl clothes, that was what I was. Anyone who looked at me could tell my class and my world. When I wore the clothes I picked for myself, I could have been anyone. I could go anywhere in Nine and not look out of place... or at least not out of place because of my class.

No one knew who I was when I stood on the corner and played my violin. They just knew I was Camille. That was what I told them when they starting coming up to me and getting to know me. Sometimes they tried to leave money, but I turned them away. They needed it and I didn't. The butcher needed it for his little boy Bobby. Old Mrs. Miller should have used it fo her limp. I saw the way she walked back in at night from the fields, way behind everyone else. I knew all the faces and I loved it when my music made them smile. When I was wearing my dark clothes and makeup and standing on that corner, it felt a lot more like I was at home.

Evey day I hoped I would see Dalek. Every day the song ended without him. I didn't blame him, not really. I'd been naive. We both had, but naivety meant different things for rich people and for poor people. We'd thought we were brave and invincible with our petty vandalism and mischief. When we were caught trashing my house, I got grounded. Everyone else got arrested. Dalek was the one that showed me how insulated and sheltered I was. On that day, he was the one that learned it.

That was another reason I came out and played. I played for myself and for how happy it made me. I played to see how far I could stretch my abilities and how far music could go. Also I played because I owed something. I had so much I didn't earn. My parents ran a business. I just lived with them. I was protected from tesserae and hard labor and even the law just because of who I was born as. These people had nothing. The least I could do was give them something beautiful. They deserved more, and I was working on that. I kept up my vandalism and petty crime on people who could afford it and gave any proceeds to people who needed it. A modern-day Robin Hood, if Robin Hood was as rich as the people he robbed and wore black tights with skulls on them. It just ate me up I couldn't do more. When I was with Dalek, I felt like what I was doing meant something. That was what I wanted. I wanted every minute of my life to be worthwhile. Not one wasted second.

* * *

**Arthur: A short, malnutritional boy with gaunt features and tanned skin. His hair is overgrown, thick and black with dark brown eyes. An oversized Aquiline nose, misshapen from being broken multiple times. Of Greek descent. He has a charming smile and his eye still shine like most children his age.  
**

**Camille: Camille is a very tall and gangly looking girl. Her skin is very pale. She has a generally symmetric face with high cheekbones and a sharp jawline. Her hair is pitch black and always smooth and glimmering. **


	11. Eleven Reaping

**I skipped Ten for sUsPeNsE. I think I actually have both forms, I was just too lazy to update the list.**

* * *

Rachel "Switch" Larson- District Eleven female

Deserted alleyways are cool. We don't have many in Eleven, but what passes for our main street has a few. They always seem so mysterious and full of possibilities. What's down there? Cool garbage that's probably still useful? A raccoon? Giant junkyard dog? I always walked by and did the sensible thing. I was pretty sure if anything was down there I could fight it, but I'd feel like an idiot if my dumb self got rabies because I was trying to fight a dog.

"Someone help!"

That changed things. I ran to the edge of the alley and peeked in. A little kid maybe eleven years old was trying to pull away from a much larger boy my age. I didn't know what was going down but it couldn't have been good. I looked over my shoulder to make sure no one else was waiting, then started to move in.

The pair didn't see me at first. As I walked past the garbage cans that helped obscure the view, I picked up an empty bottle from one of them. Better to hit someone with a breakable wine bottle than a breakable hand.

The older kid looked over and saw me. I hefted the wine bottle and drew myself up purposefully.

"Hey! Leave him alone!" I said. The boy's eyes flickered as he ran some internal calculations and decided a street fight with two people wasn't worth whatever he came here to do, especially after we all heard footsteps behind me as other people heard the kid screaming. He let go of the littler boy's arm. The little boy ran toward me. He was crying, and I believed him until he was just a few steps away, when I saw the knife glitter by his side.

"What was that?!"

_What was what?_ The thought went through my head and then I snapped back to attention. _Kid running toward me! Knife!_ I looked around and my face screwed up in confusion when I saw both the boys on the ground clutching at their arms.

"What happened?" I asked. And why did my face hurt?

"You kicked their asses!" said the same kid who asked what that was.

"No way," I said. I always liked to imagine getting in fights with people way bigger than me and totally owning them, but that wasn't real life. For some unsettling reason I didn't remember the last minute or so, but I wasn't some ninja assassin.

I looked down at the two kids I'd apparently beaten up. I tasted blood on my lip, so I guessed they got in some hits, too. If I really had beaten them up. _Adrenaline rush, maybe? Is that how those work?_

"Kid, you're not messing with me?" I asked the boy. "You're telling me I did that?"

"Yeah!" he said.

_Well that's weird._

* * *

Pikney "Pik" Reynolds- District Eleven male

The tiller jammed, its circular wire rings clanging back and forth as they tried to jerk free. The smell of grinding and burning parts wafted into the air. Sparro vaulted over from behind it and shut it off.

I sat leaned against it with the rest of the workers while we waited for the mechanic to check it out. We didn't get breaks very often. It almost made up for how much later we'd stay out to make up for it.

"Serves him right," Neo said. He was talking about Arthur, the man who owned the equipment and more or less owned us as well. He was going to be furious about paying for repairs, but none of us had any sympathy for him. "Speak of the devil," Neo said as he appeared walking toward us, mopping sweat off his pink forehead with a rag.

"Go to the repair shop," he said. He shoved a list of parts at me and made a show of counting each bill as he peeled them off. Like I was brave enough or stupid enough to run away. "Make it quick."

That was how I came to be speedwalking past an alley when I heard the commotion. I poked my head in and saw a bottle-wielding girl standing guard while a little boy fled toward her as a bigger boy lurked beyond them. Then I looked down and saw the boy's knife.

I shrank back against the wall and clenched my hands to my sides. The girl couldn't see the knife from her angle._ I should warn her_. But what if they got mad and came after me? Should I run in and try to help? What if _I_ got stabbed? The seconds spiraled out endlessly as I wavered, leaning out slightly and then losing my nerve and ducking back. I heard other people coming up behind me at the noise._ I shouldn't, then. One of them will help._

Then the girl exploded into action. She stepped sideways as the boy stuck out his arm to stab her. She grabbed him arm and sort of belly-flopped onto it. I heard it snap as they hit the ground. She jumped off him as the bigger boy ran at her. He got in a punch to her face that knocked her down. She kicked the side of his knee from the ground and he fell, too. She grabbed his arm and kind of folded herself over it. She arched her back, stretching it across her until it snapped with the same noise.

Shame crept up in me as the other onlookers gathered around the girl. I should have helped, but I hadn't. That girl didn't hesitate, and I didn't jump in even after she already had. I took a step forward to see if I could do anything now, but there was no need. It was too late. I slipped away. No one had even noticed I was there.

* * *

**Rachel: 5'6, sinewy type body from living on streets and working in the trees,pixy cut hair, tan**

**Pik: Pik is tall and muscular, about 6'1. His skin is tan from working in the sun and is covered in freckles from head-to-toe. His eyes are a dark, warm brown. His hair is shaggy and curly, and he is pushing it out of his face. He has several long scars down his back.**


	12. Twelve Reaping

**Harper's dad is a potty mouth.**

* * *

Joy Wincenty- District Twelve male

I always had a perverse affection for Reaping day. It was the only day when all the children in the entire District were in one place. It was always in the back of my mind that I could get Reaped, but it never seemed real to me. There were so many kids all around me. The odds seemed nonexistent. It was like being afraid to fly in an airplane. Sure you could crash, but the odds of that were one in a thousand. That was something that happened on the news, not to you. No one I knew personally had ever gotten Reaped. I always watched the boy and girl go to the stage and a few days after they died, they were already fading from my mind. I knew it was sad. People just tend to forget things that don't affect them.

Jay stood next to me in line, of course. It always disappointed me that my best friend Smith had to stand so far away just because his last name was so far from mine. But I made do with the boys around me. They were talking more to Jay, since he was more popular than me, but I was a friendly sort and people usually liked to include me too.

Our conversation about a cute new girl in class hushed when Chimera walked onstage. Music played, spotlights hit the stage, and the Dark Days footage started. No one paid any attention. I didn't know why they insisted on doing that every year.

"Ladies first!" Chimera said, and dipped his hand into the bowl. "Sunny Ackerman!" A dark girl walked toward the stage all bent forward. "Do we have any volunteers?"

"I volunteer as Tribute!"

I felt guilty for the flush of relief. I knew that voice. Harper was something of a shameful District secret. They say she used to be normal. Then she had an accident and now she was brain-damaged. It wasn't her fault the things she did, but I couldn't lie and say I wasn't relieved she wouldn't be here anymore. A Peacekeeper whispered something in Chimera's ear as she was walking up. Chimera didn't offer her the microphone.

"And now the gentlemen," Chimera said. I felt the familiar flood of panic and paralysis as he reached for the slip. "Jay Wincenty!"

My head whipped over to face my brother. I'd never seen anyone look like Jay did at that moment. He was always the confident one, the one people gathered around. He never had anything to be unsure about. And now his wide eyes and open mouth showed naked fear. Tears were welling up in his eyes. He was shaking. He didn't move toward the stage.

I couldn't say later what I was thinking. I knew my brother didn't deserve this. He deserved a long, happy life. More than I did, really. He was just sort of better at everything. My parents never played favorites, but it was just true. I could hear them screaming off to the side, and our sister Sully in the crowd with us. Jay had an amazing life to live. I could tell you I _wasn't_ thinking about what could happen to me, or what happened to people who volunteered for the Games. There were a lot of things I wasn't thinking about when I walked toward the stage.

"Give a big round of applause to Harper Newman and Jay Wincenty!"

I didn't remember walking up the stairs to the stage or taking Harper's hand. I wanted to jerk away, but that wasn't polite. I found Jay in the crowd and was a little surprised he hadn't stopped me. He was a good brother and he loved me. Then I remembered what Chimera had said and realized I'd forgotten to say I volunteered. I remembered boys staring wide-eyed at me as I walked past them. Scared because the dead man was walking by them, but not knowing it wasn't Jay walking at all. It was me. It was Joy. Identical to my brother, but now a world apart.

* * *

Harper Newman- District Twelve female

Mama's fingers ran through my hair as she combed it. I sat still on the chair, even though it was hard. She was a good mother. I felt safe with her. When I was with her, my head felt quieter. Sometimes it didn't feel like there was anyone telling me what to do. I knew she was afraid. Today it was because of the Reaping, but she was always afraid when she was with me. I heard it in how her voice got gentler when she talked to me and she always looked at me hard after she said something, like she was afraid I would be mad. I caught her looking at me a lot when I was playing or making my dolls. I didn't know what she was afraid of.

Dad wasn't home. I didn't miss him. He was always angry with me. He called me ugly things like retard and bastard. I didn't know what all the words meant. I knew what retard meant, though. It means someone who got dropped on their head when they were little and their brain didn't work anymore. I didn't know why he was so mad at me. I wasn't always a retard and it wasn't my fault. I hated him. I hoped the demon told me to kill him someday. If he didn't I would do it anyway.

The demon was my real father, sort of. Mom and Dad were my parents but the demon sent me here to be his sub-demon in this world. I didn't know how to spell his name but it sounded like Aicalzaara. He told me what he wanted and I did it. It was usually angry things. He told me who should get hurt and how to do it. My mother never knew what to think of the dolls. She liked to see me playing and she thought I was happy, but she was also scared of them. I saw them in a book once. I didn't know all the words but I saw the pictures of how you put needles in them and they hurt people. Aicalzaara told me to keep reading and studying until I knew how to make them. I knew someday he would tell me to hurt people myself. I would do it. If I ever disobeyed he would do something worse than I could think of.

This wasn't going to be like most Reaping days. I loved Reaping days because I loved the Games. I loved to watch them and memorize everything about them. We never got good shows on our televisions and the Games was the most exciting thing to happen all year long. I loved to talk about them when I had my meetings with Uncle Kennard. Uncle Kennard worked with retards like me and he talked to me in ways I could understand. He also liked the Games and we talked about them a lot.

But this wasn't going to be like most Reaping days. I had a secret as I stood with all the other girls. I looked out over their heads and saw the stage even though we were near the back. Aicalzaara made me really tall so I could hurt people better. I stood on my toes as Chimera came out. I could see him fine but I was excited. I remembered four days ago when Aicalzaara told me.

"Volunteer for the Games," he said.

I waited for Chimera to call the girl before I did it. I wanted to enjoy every minute of another Reaping before I added my part.

"Ladies first!" he said. "Sunny Ackerman." I waited along with him. "Do we have any volunteers?"

"I volunteer as Tribute!" I said. I smiled as I walked past the other girls who weren't chosen. When a boy joined me I took his hand like they did every year. He looked at me after a minute and I felt his hand go stiff. He didn't have to be afraid, not yet. Aicalzaara hadn't said anything about him. I would wait until he spoke to me again.

* * *

**Joy: : Dark black short wavy hair along with brown-ish and an olive skin. He is 1.52 meters tall and he has 55 kilograms of weight. His face is round while is nose is average. He wears whatever clothes he can.**

**Harper: Dark brown hair, shoulder length. Hazel eyes, pale skin, and a stubby nose. She has a wide and muscular build and is around 6ft 2".**


	13. Ten Reaping

**Yay last one! The long-anticipated District Ten.**

* * *

Angus Pastor- District Ten male

"Grrr, I'm Dirty Dan," I growled, brandishing the stick that sort of looked like a old-timey revolver if you squinted and didn't know what a revolver looked like. "I'm gonna rustle these here pigs!"

"No, you're _not_!" Will yelled back, yanking his own stick pistol from the holster Mom made out of a broken leather belt. "Not while Sheriff Six-Shooter is on patrol!"

"Hold it right there," I said. I hopped the fence into the pigpen and scooped up the piglet with the brown spot on her ear, since she was ridiculously mellow. I clutched her to my chest and put the stick up to her head. "No trouble now, or the piglet gets it."

"You won't get away with this!" Sheriff Six-Shooter said. Which was true, since I never got away with it. Dirty Dan tried to rustle livestock or make trouble at saloons at least a few times a week, and Sheriff Six-Shooter always stopped him in the end.

"Oh yes I will!" I snickered. I started to sidestep, keeping the piglet between me and my adversary. My face drew back in shock when he lifted his six-shooter.

"Bang!" he yelled.

I threw my stick sideways and fell on my back, throwing my arm out in a way that gently deposited the piglet on the ground. As she placidly ran back to her companions, I thrashed and wailed.

"Aaaahh you shot my gun right out of my hand! What kind of man can shoot like that?!" I bellowed.

"Sheriff Six-Shooter!" Will yelled triumphantly. He knelt by my side to handcuff me with his pretend handcuffs and I lurched and grabbed him with a villainous second wind. We tussled on the ground until he pinned me and slapped on the handcuffs as I tried vainly to squirm away.

The dinner bell interrupted as we marched to the town jail.

"Ha ha slowpoke I'm gonna beat you!" I yelled. I sprinted ahead and looked over my shoulder at Will trying to catch up. Life was hard in Ten, but I still thought it was good. I had parents that loved me and a little brother who was a pretty cool dude. Sure it sucked sometimes having to share a room since Grandma moved in, but that's life. Maybe people in the Capitol had it better, but that didn't really bother me. In their eyes we were in poverty, but I didn't know anything different. To me this was just life, and it was enough.

* * *

Queenie Hesperaloe- District Ten female

Chimera had to be on his last legs as an escort. He was pushing sixty, and goodness knows the Capitol can't have people be seen being old. It was a shame. He always seemed like a nice guy. He was still spry, too, just... wrinkly. A sin worse than murder.

He reached into the bowl. "Natalie Salisbury!"

_Never mind, prick._

"Do we have any volunteers?" Chimera asked after Angus joined me onstage. Silence greeted him. "Let's have-"

"Wait!" I yelled. I pointed out at a figure in the crowd. "There!"

Chimera looked at the flag-carrying female. I VOLUNTEER, the flag read.

"I know her. She's been mute since birth," I said.

Chimera laughed an old man laugh. "Oh ha ha, what a funny joke!" he said.

"Check the records!" I insisted. "She's in the record book!"

"What a silly girl. Okay, let's check," Chimera said generously. He beckoned the census official at the far end of the crowd. We met by the possible volunteer, who was standing at the end of a row of girls, still holding the white I VOLUNTEER sign overhead.

"What's her name?" Chimera asked, in a sort of "playing-along" voice.

"Here," I said, taking the littler sign she had ready. I handed it to the census official. He scrolled down the touchscreen with a finger. His mouth made a funny little irritated half-smile when he stopped at an entry.

"Queenie Hesperaloe, age 18," he read aloud. The picture was an exact match.

"W-what?" Chimera's tone was incredulous. "This is- how does this happen? What kind of worker..."

"Government workers, am I right?" I contributed. Lazy government workers who don't give a rip about their jobs. That and a bribe that took me six years to save up.

"Look, obviously this is some sort of prank," the census taker said. "So let's get back to-"

"Hold on," Chimera said. I saw something spring up within him. He suddenly looked much younger and stronger. I saw then he was more than a gentle old man. There was defiance and strength in him I'd never guessed. "She's in the record book." He ignored the census official's scoff and rolled eyes. "She's a citizen and she has a right to volunteer. Come along now," Chimera said to me. We went back to the stage where he left me to confer with some suited officials just offstage. I watched as two Peacekeepers assisted Queenie to her spot next to me. She offered no resistance. Indeed, she seemed utterly fearless. On the other side of me, Angus gaped at Queenie with incredulity and at me with tentative, awed admiration.

I didn't like the looks the officials were flashing at me, but Chimera won out in the end. When he sent me back offstage, I caught the conspiratorial approval in his smile. It probably wouldn't be the last I heard of this, but I'd cross that bridge when I came to it.

I watched from the crowd as he announced the two Tributes of District Ten. There was no reason Queenie couldn't win, it seemed like. She was about my height, but stouter. She carried herself straight and proud. There was no arrogance in her expression but also not a trace of panic. Her muteness would only make her stealthier. And yet I knew why they'd kicked up such a fuss. Queenie was unlike any other Tribute I'd ever heard of, because she was a plant.

* * *

**Angus: brown eyes, black hair, tanned skin, stands at 5'8 and has a hoof mark from a horse on his chest.**

**Queenie: 5'6", tufty green grass at her bottom, fluffy red fronds on top of thin grassy stalks. Grows in a red clay pot. Looks like a Texas Red Yucca plant.**


	14. Train of Thought

**Blooper: I always get the Ten and Twelve escorts mixed up since they both have trisyllabic names. It was Fluvius, not Chimera, who vouched for Queenie. Him being old is sort of a mythology gag, since he was in my very first HG story as Cornflower's escort. So really since he was already old then he's more like pushing 80 if you wanna get nitpicky.**

* * *

Blake Armani- District One mentor

They actually sent two actual Careers this time. I didn't want to be a whiner but I couldn't help but notice the insane amount of non-volunteers and "reluctant" volunteers we'd had over the last ten years or so. But Alsace and Andromeda were actual, normal Careers. Maybe we'd actually win this one. As long as Alsace remembered the point of the game was to win and not to "win" a grudge match.

* * *

Pray Jager- District Two mentor

_Bull._ No one drops a syringe the week before the Reaping. I never dabbled in them but I knew enough to know doping a week before the Reaping wouldn't have any effect. I also knew Dew was an endomorph and would have been way larger if he'd been into that. Sagar didn't deserve to be here and he wasn't getting anything from me. Medusa, now... everyone had been against her and somehow she still made it. On the one hand, she obviously didn't need any help. On the other, if she got this far without it, what could she do with me behind her?

* * *

Gidget Ford- District Three mentor

"Can you tell us how to win?" Andrea asked.

"I'm gonna be honest with you two," I said. "Really I won out of luck. I'm not so much a coach as... think of me as your agent. Whatever you're already good at, I'm gonna play that up to the sponsors and get you some real material help, since I don't have much strategic help to offer. If I did, I wouldn't still be mentoring."

* * *

Shane Donegal- District Four mentor

He wasn't a Career. That was a welcome change. I didn't like Careers. Perversely, this once I wished it was a Career. Percy had no chance of winning. I didn't have to pretend I approved of wanting a chance to kill people, but I had to stand by and watch an innocent kid die. I'd seen enough people die. When I thought about that, pain pierced my heart. I'd seen someone almost Percy's age die. Not a month went by I didn't think of her. If she was alive now, she'd be old enough to be his mother.

* * *

Careen Ellis- District Four mentor

"Heard you have some unfortunate relatives," I said to Cyrene.

"The blood of the covenant is thicker than the water of birth," she said.

We kept our eyes on each other. Neither of us looked up or to the sides at the cameras studded in the walls and joints of the train car.

"Do you miss them?" I asked.

"They're lucky they got arrested before I could kill them," she said.

"Let's get you some sponsors," I said.

* * *

Erwin Jackson- District Five mentor

I clung to Aurelia as she cried in my lap. She coughed and her tiny body shook and shuddered. My face was stiff and over her shoulders, where she couldn't see, my eyes were lost.

"Please can you talk to them? So I can go back home?" Aurelia asked. She didn't notice I didn't answer. "Please make them let me go home. They'll listen to you. Please can you talk to them? Let's go home, okay? They'll listen to you..."

* * *

Meenah Turbine- District Five mentor

Remus did a double-take when I walked into the car.

"I know, I know, it's weird," I said, raising a hand. "Erwin is Aurelia's grandfather." A moment passed as the secondhand pain passed through us. "Obviously he'll be with her, so you're stuck with me."

"Actually, that's..." Remus started. He looked down at his hands. His face puckered and he composed himself. "That's perfect."

"Oh? Well, good," I said. I opened my mouth to go on. Remus looked up at me suddenly.

"I want to be a woman," she said.

* * *

Lancia Audren- District Six mentor

"Hey. Meet the next Victor," Tony said as I came in. He offered his hand and I shook it.

"Maybe," I said coolly.

"Or maybe her, to be honest," Tony said, pointing at Siobhan, who was watching out the window with her hands pressed up on the glass "I really have no idea." His smile was carefree.

"You get to do this every year?" Siobhan took her face from the glass to grin at me. "I love trains! Oh, also, it's 'them'."

* * *

Loki Saberhagen- District Seven mentor

Rigel seemed to have a lot going for him already. He was built like, well, a lumberjack. Just from talking to him I could tell he was smart. He also had that shifty look about him, the same as he saw in me. Right when we first looked at each other we could tell we'd both done time in the orphanage.

Katrina bent over the table and felt at its polished wood. Then she got up and walked from one end of the car to the other, peering at every detail.

"Everything's so pretty," she said. "I think if I lived somewhere so pretty I wouldn't have to kill kids to be happy."

* * *

Tillo Peters- District Eight mentor

I could never think of much to say to my new Tributes. Luckily this year they took care of that.

"I think there's something we have to say," Fryderyk started. "Something we both knew was coming."

Cerise fanned her fingers out on the table and nodded. "Yeah. I think you're right."

_What are they talking about?_ I wondered.

"I'll always cherish you,"Fryderyk said. He had the look of someone who would have cried but already had.

"You were my first love," Cerise said softly.

_Oh no_ that's_ what they're talking about._ I beat a retreat and let the breakup finish in private.

* * *

Randy Mills- District Nine mentor

I did a last-minute makeup check in the mirror before I met my Tributes. It seemed like I did that every year. No need for them to see puffy-eyed red-nosed me. It wasn't their fault I always thought of Laurel when I got back on the train.

I meant to ask Arthur why someone his age would volunteer, but I took one step into the car and Camille totally distracted me.

"Oh my gosh I love your outfit!" I said. I'd always been too chicken to get into goth but I always thought it looked so cool. "OMG before the Games we should totally have a makeover night. We'll do the training and stuff too but makeovers!"

* * *

Bambi Kirkland- District Ten mentor

"I'm very grateful for this opportunity," Angus said. "The Dark Days must never happen again. It's good we have the Games to ensure that."

I was about to write him off and leave when I figured it out. Smart kid. Smart enough to grab at the crumbs of the people who were starving him.

"I'm glad you see that," I said.

* * *

Cornflower Fields- District Ten mentor

I sat facing the window. Queenie was set on the table. I put an arm around her pot to guard against the lurch of the train when it would start.

A throng of people crowded outside to see the train off. Peacekeepers stood all along the platform. I covered my ears with my hands. Some of the people in the crowd noticed and looked at me funny. Then the Peacekeepers raised their guns.

* * *

Hlenn Rambutan- District Eleven mentor

"You're one of the indentured servants, aren't you?" I asked Pik.

"How'd you know?" he asked without much surprise.

"Just written on you, I guess," I said. In the way he sat, in the way he acted. A difference not in his attitude but in his soul, if I had to nail it down. And speaking of souls, Rachel had two, sort of. Lucky for her. That was what you needed if you wanted to win the Games and have a soul left.

* * *

Haymitch Abernathy- District Twelve mentor

"I'm not really Jay. I'm Joy," the boy said. "We're twins," he said at my confused look.

Twins, I thought. "But you weren't the one that got called."

"I went up instead. That's what brothers do," he said.

My heart sent out a slow beat. My breath let out. The blood in me lost its warmth until cold dampness flooded me. I took in another breath and wilted in my chair. The best don't survive a war.

Nubu Sanders- District Twelve mentor

I was heartsick. Pity, compassion, horror, and love mingled in me as I watched Harper pace the car, her eyes darting and her hands flexing. She spoke sometimes, a mixture of nonsense and dark utterances about things better unspoken. She was a child. A child who should be in a hospital. We should be caring for her, trying to mend the damage that started in her mind and bled into her soul. I couldn't help her win this. The best I could offer her was prayer.

* * *

_Reality ensues :( Small consolation, no children died when the Peacekeepers opened fire on the Ten crowd, since they aimed high to hit adults._


	15. Parade

**Good question! There are different amounts of mentors for some Districts because some Districts have more reader-submitted Victors than other Districts and I like to give them all a moment.**

**I decided to skip to the parades this time for no particular reason.**

* * *

Alsace Cartier- District One male

_Eh. Suit covered diamonds? Groundbreaking._

Andromeda and I shared the same underwhelmed look whenever we met each other's eyes. I unenthusiastically climbed into the chariot with her. We unenthusiastically waved to the crowd while pretending we were very enthusiastic. It looked exactly like two people trained to kill who were now being forced to pretend to care because theoretically they might need help from the screaming baboons that filled the auditorium.

* * *

Medusa Gorgona- District Two female

I was the bad guy. Of course I was the bad guy. Of course Sagar was dressed in the golden robe, his hair feathered and his skin dusted with bronzer. Of course he had the sword and mirrored shield and laurel crown. Because he was Perseus. And I was Medusa.

The crowd still cheered for me, even though I was bad. That made me happier than I wanted to admit. I guess who better than a Capitolite to know it's only a costume. I wouldn't be able to hear them, but I hoped they still cheered for me in the Arena.

* * *

Ryx Marker- District Three male

What a silly outfit. I was supposed to be the one getting filmed. Not the video camera! But there I stood, wearing a giant bulky square-shaped outfit with a plastic lens sticking out one side. I could barely move without knocking into Andrea and her sparkly doctor outfit. Must be nice to have rich parents with Capitol connections. But at least it was fun to ride behind real horses and see all the Capitolites and their crazy outfits all cheering and throwing flowers. It was the experience of a lifetime, with the price that the lifetime wouldn't last much longer.

* * *

Cyrene Longuemare- District Four female

The outfit was meant to make me look like a sea nymph. Something dangerous and duplicitous. Something the Capitol wouldn't want to win, especially with its family history. I took the barely sharp prop knife and sliced the bottom swathe of material off. I tied it loosely around my waist for a carefree, bohemian sort of skirt, something an unassuming bubbly young woman would wear. I scooped a thrown flower off the ground and tucked it into my hair before I stepped into the chariot. And when we started moving, I squealed and smiled and waved and folded my hands in front of my chest like I was just so happy the big awesome Capitolites loved little old. Little old unthreatening me who loved the and would never ever do anything to make them mad.

* * *

Remus Ray- District Five

I hated it. But things were looking better, actually. I didn't hate it because it felt deeply wrong and unspeakably unnatural when I looked in the mirror. It was just a horrible outfit whether you were a boy or a girl. Aurelia and I wore skintight catsuits covered on every inch by mini fans that I guess were supposed to be wind turbines. They made an annoying droning noise and every time I brushed the side of the chariot a whole bunch would clunk against it and their blades would get stuck. It would have been a better costume if they'd just had us stick our fingers in a socket.

* * *

Siobhan Hearse- District Six female

"Choo choo, mother...trucker," Antonio said, smiling at me and censoring himself at the last minute after suddenly remembering how young I was. He had a good sense of humor for a guy wearing a caboose outfit. Meanwhile _I_ wore a snazzy conductor outfit.

"Guess you know what this means," Antonio said. He bent over and scooped me up so I was sitting on his shoulders. I screamed playfully and waved at the crowd, which was going nuts. Antonio did a funky backwards gliding step and shimmed from side to side in the chariot. Maybe it wasn't a real train, but he did the best he could.

* * *

Rigel Aspen- District Seven male

I got the feeling that Banyon was definitely freaking out back at the orphanage. He was always trying to tell me about his nerd books about dwarves and stuff. I forget which one, but this definitely looked like one of the pictures he'd shown me once. Could be worse, so I wasn't mad. I could be an axe or something. No complaints here.

* * *

Cerise Dupin- District Eight female

Awkward. Awkward standing in a very small chariot with the guy you just broke up with. Awkward wearing a weird patchwork outfit of mismatched red fabric while he wore a mismatched green one. Awkward watching Capitolites fawn over me while I secretly fought against everything they stood for. About the only thing not awkward was that the stylists listened to my request and didn't make me wear a dress. Thank heaven for small blessings.

* * *

Arthur Harrington- District Nine male

Capitolites swarmed on either side of the chariots. They were screaming and jumping and throwing things. The heat from thousands of bodies left the air as stuffy as the factories back in Nine. I couldn't hear myself think over the pounding and yelling. The floor shook with how much they were moving. It was loud and hot and piercing and honestly awful and I just wanted it to be over.

* * *

Angus Pastor- District Ten male

_This is my life now. This is what I have become. I am in the front half of a two-person cow suit. In the back half of the costume there is a potted plant. This is what my life has become. My butt is a potted plant._

* * *

Rachel Larson- District Eleven female

The Capitolites seemed to think I had a chance. They were sure cheering loud enough. I liked to think I was a pretty tough girl, but they might be slightly overconfident. But I wasn't going to complain about a crowd of people cheering for me as I rode by. I mean, thousands of people can't all be wrong, right? Guess I was going to win.

* * *

Joy Wincenty- District Twelve male

One of my first thoughts after realizing I was going into the Games was how cool the parade would be. After all the panic and fear got processed, I couldn't help but think about wearing some crazy outfit and having everyone look at me while I paraded magnificently through the Capitol. The parade was everything I dreamed it would be. It was only a few minutes and after that came things I couldn't imagine yet, but those few minutes were something I would never forget.


	16. Careers

Alsace Cartier- District One male

I had to do it. It was all I'd been thinking about since I got to the Capitol. I'd wondered if I would see him around while we prepared for the parade or on the trains, but it hadn't happened. He loomed large in my mind as I rode the elevator. The door opened and I strode down the hall. I was coming for Loki.

I didn't honestly know what would happen when I saw him. I just had to confront him. I had to finally see in person the man who killed my brother. It was almost infuriating to think he had no idea I was coming. He'd barely known I existed until I volunteered. Lyon was nothing to him but a memory now, fading every year until he might not even remember what he looked like now. He was just a long-gone side character in the story of his life. I wanted him to know what he'd done. I wanted him to know how much he destroyed.

As I walked toward the Seven lounge, the door opened. I stopped and stood to the side of the hall as someone came out. The reflective line of a cane broke the doorway and adrenaline shot through me. Before the rest of his thin frame even appeared, I knew it was Loki. I stood frozen, breath swelling in my chest, as he walked the other way without even noticing me. He was real. He was really there.

I started to walk after him. I sped up to overtake him. _When he notices me, what am I going to do?_ I wanted him to pay, but how could he make up for what he did? Beneath it all, it wasn't even about making him hurt. It was about making me not hurt.

Loki's head started to turn as he noticed the noise of my footsteps. I surged forward and grabbed for his arm. He jolted upwards like he'd touched a live wire. For a single instant I saw primitive focus in his eyes. Then his cane blocked the view as he swung it at my head. The impact loosened my grip and he slipped free. I got into a fighting stance to finish what he started, but as I did, he bolted down the hall.

"Hey!" I called after him. He ran through the door to the Seven lounge and I heard the lock click.

_He didn't want to fight_. This time, at least. That wasn't how it went down when he crossed paths with Lyon. He could run, but it wasn't over. After all this time I'd finally found him, and nothing had been resolved. I was still hurting and he was still oblivious.

* * *

Andromeda Dior- District One female

Alsace seemed effortless swordfighting his sparring partner. He didn't even have to try to look effortless. He was so confident and natural he wasn't even worried about how he looked. On the other side of the sword station, Medusa was equally graceful. And Sagar was clearly having the time of his life hitting every target with his javelin.

_They think I'm the weak link. I know they do_. I didn't look like a big, strong Career. I didn't have an upper-class accent or upper-class manners. I wouldn't even know when I was giving myself away as poor. But I knew they knew I was.

I wanted to look like them. I wanted their ease and their confidence. I wanted them to look at me the way I look at them. I'd hoped I could demonstrate my rapier skills, but Lyon and Medusa were already using swords. My rapier would look so fragile and laughable next to their scimitars.

Hand-to-hand it was, then. I'd focused on jiu-jitsu, specifically techniques that allowed a smaller person to redirect a larger opponent's momentum. I looked over the collection of partners and picked out the tallest instructor. As I squared up, I peeked out of the corner of my eye to make sure the other Careers were aware of me. Sagar was watching, so I had to make it good.

Even with all the training in the world, it's just plain harder to fight someone bigger than you are. Especially if they're a foot taller. My partner had reach, weight, and leverage on me. I tailored my moves and strategy to bring the fight to the ground where he couldn't use the advantage of downward power a tall opponent would otherwise have. We rolled around on the ground like a couple of pillbugs.

My partner headbutted me in the nose. Tears sprung to my eyes and I blinked them away without letting my face shift. I was sore all over from half a dozen blows, but I couldn't let any of it show. I had to look fearless. That was all Careers strove for, even though we all knew we were all faking.

My sparring partner grabbed my arm and leaned back, trying to get me to tap out by applying increasing pressure. I knew I should before damage was done and I would have in any other fight, but this time perception was more important than reality. I jostled him loose with a last burst of energy and jumped into a fighting crouch. I forced my breathing to slow as my sparring partner rose.

I snuck glances at the other Careers as I retired to the water fountain for a break. I saw Cyrene and Medusa talking and wondered if they were talking about how I held my own or how I shouldn't have gotten into an armbar in the first place. I hoped they were talking about how my skills complemened theirs and I was working to adapt to their needs.

* * *

Sagar Dewpont- District Two male

Us Careers already had the battle skills we needed. These few days in the Capitol were better spent cultivating what, in the end, really made the difference in almost everything: connections.

Pray and Ava and all the rest knew plenty about fighting and killing. But they- Pray especially- were fiercely independent. Suggest to Silver Claws that part of her victory was owed to the Capitolite that sent her the claws in the first place and you'd be lucky to escape unscratched. But it was true. So instead of the training room I was on the shopping floor of the Games building getting to know a trio of brightly colored Capitolite twenty-somethings.

"Oh, I guess I've been in a few fights," I replied to a green-haired man with a nose ring and purple eyes.

"Anything really bad?" he asked, eyes gleaming.

"Eh, broken bones heal, you know? I'm pretty sure he's walking again," I said. The three of them oohed and looked at each other to confirm they'd all heard it.

"It's just the way it is in Two," I shrugged. "You grow up early there. You learn to fight or you don't grow up at all." I shifted my bearing in a calculated manner that communicated both the tragedy of my fake past and the strength it had given me.

"That sounds terrible," a glitter-encrusted Capitolite said.

"It wasn't all bad," I said. "I know it's bad, but..." Here was where I'd hook them. "Have you ever wanted to just let loose? Really fight someone and give them all you've got? I don't look for fights, of course, but sometimes it just feels so good to let out all that anger. We all think about it sometimes. I've lived it."

"I've always known I could kill someone and not even feel a thing," the green-haired Capitolite said. "I have a darkness inside me."

"I hope someone sends me supplies so I can defend myself. Whoever does, it will be like we're connected. They'll be killing someone too. Spooky," I said. Usually I'm more subtle but these were Capitolites I was talking to. Capitolites more than ready to indulge their edginess fantasies with someone more than ready to do it in reality.

* * *

Medusa Gorgona- District Two female

Alsace's tray clacked against the table as he sat beside me at lunch.

"Hey. What's up?" he said.

"Not much. The normal stuff," I said. I scooted away so there was a gap between us.

We ate in silence for a minute. Then Alsace crooked his head and leaned a little closer. The hairs on the back of my neck stood up and I got ready to shoot out a barbed retort.

"That's a pretty necklace," Alsace said.

"Huh? Oh," I said. I wrapped my fingers around the little pendant and held it in my palm. "A snake. Because my name is Medusa. Creative."

"Looks handmade," Alsace said, and I was surprised. Hardly anyone noticed that.

"My sister made it," I said.

"You two close?" Alsace asked.

The ghost of a smile died on my face. "We were," I said.

"You grew apart?" Alsace asked. There was a heartwarming hope in his voice.

"She's dead," I said.

Alsace turned so our faces were side-by-side again. "So's my brother," he said. "I'm sorry."

"Nothing to be sorry for," I said.

"Yeah. But I still am," he said. "Pretty good crowd of Careers this year. Except Percy."

I was grateful for him changing the subject. "Well, you know Four."

"My instructor used to call them District Bore," Alsace said. "Not very clever, to be honest."

"We can't throw stones in Two because there's such an obvious joke right there," I said. Alsace squinted, then laughed.

"We're number one and number two," he said. "That's real mature." He laughed again.

"If I die, just promise you won't let Percy win," I said.

"There's no way you're going to die before Percy," Alsace said.

"True that," I admitted.

"As long as it's a Career, am I right? I'm tired of outliers making us look bad. This year it has to be one of us," Lyon said.

_It has to be me,_ I thought but didn't say. Just like Alsace was thinking but not saying it. Like twenty-four of us were.

* * *

Percy Mordecai- District Four male

It was easy to find the rest of the Careers. They were the only ones who weren't trying to hide.

I walked up and gave a little wave. "Hey. We got a plan yet or what?"

"And why would you care?" Sagar asked.

I reeled back a little where I stood and blinked. "Because I'm a Career."

"Oh, you thought you were a Career?" Alsace asked.

"You volunteered for your little boyfriend. We volunteered to win. We are not the same," Sagar added.

"What? I trained! I went to the Academy just like all of you!" I said. The other Careers moved closer together, clearly marking the borders of the group.

Cyrene held up a hand and slid between Lyon and Sagar. She looked me over.

"We're not trying to be insulting. We're just not convinced you're an advantageous ally. Maybe we aren't advantageous to you either," she said.

"Advantageous?!" I spat. I felt my muscles tense and my teeth grind as surprise turned to offense and then anger. "Advantageous _this_!" I took the throwing knife out of my pocket and whirled around, throwing at the dummy at the archery station behind me. The knife lodged into the dummy's forehead.

"You want that where you can see it or you want it in the back of the head?" I said, louder than I should have.

"Maybe we should let him in," Andromeda said, then looked like she wished she hadn't.

"Okay, maybe," Alsace admitted. "That was pretty cool."

I smiled at Alsace and took a step closer, insinuating myself into the group. They didn't stop me.

_That's right. Just give me a chance,_ I thought. I'd be a good ally. Especially to Andromeda and Alsace. I wouldn't forget they stuck up for me. I'd still kill them if I had to an all, but, like, last. And until then I'd be a good ally. A friend, even. That was all I wanted.

* * *

Cyrene Longuemare- District Four female

The Careers sat clustered around the hologram projected on the table between us. It showed a circle of smaller circles surrounding a rectangle.

"Obviously, a lot depends on who you're next to. I suggest that if we're by someone small, we run after them before going into the Cornucopia. The weapons will be there after the Bloodbath. Every Tribute that gets away has a chance to hole up somewhere and hide. We all know how well that went over last year. Kill them now and that's one less person." I tapped the table where one round circle was and an X appeared.

"We should go after the biggest targets," Sagar said. "Get them out of the way."

"I agree that should be the main focus," I said. "The smaller Tributes are just opportunistic kills if the chance arises. But for main targets, I think it's pretty clear."

"Rigel, Rachel, Antonio... maybe Katrina," Alsace said.

"We should all look for the nearest Career and then the nearest high-reward target. In a pair we should attack. That will negate any beginner's luck," I said. I knew Alsace had something to say about that, but I didn't look at him. If I wanted to be a leader that meant knowing that I wasn't in charge of anyone in the end and they would do what they decided.

"Guys, I know it's dangerous, but I think I can do it. I think I can take out Queenie," Andromeda said, her face earnest. I couldn't help but smile. The rest of us groaned or laughed and the intense vibe of the room dispelled.

"They'll probably make the platforms farther apart this time, so even if they look close enough, I wouldn't risk jumping," I said.

"Good idea. Also I think this Arena will probably be hospitable, since last one was so terrible. We'll probably have more food. Of course so will everyone else," Sagar said.

"So we'll just have to do more killing," Medusa said. "Perfect."

"Okay, that was unnecessarily creepy," Alsace said. Medusa shrugged.

* * *

**Some weird timeline shenanigans going on here because I like to have SYOT years still be fresh in the minds of characters so they're referred to as the previous year even though I skip years for canon Victors sometimes.**


	17. Four Musketeers

Ryx Marker- District Three male

I blew on the tiny curl of smoke nestled in the wad of paper. The ember glowed bright and spread across the paper, leaving a black trail. I carefully added twigs and grass until I had a tendril of fire that would last as I built a teepee of bigger sticks over it.

Made it. I'd made fire. It took half a dozen tries, but I'd made fire. There was a primitive rush in it that made me want to take off my shirt and dance like a hooligan. Instead I just crouched by my little fire and smiled at it.

"Hey, cool fire."

I looked up and saw Joy regarding my labor. I knew his name because you don't forget a boy named Joy.

"Thanks. It was hard," I said.

"I heard it's harder than it looks," Joy said. "Pretty cool."

It _was_ pretty cool, and I was glad he'd said that. He seemed to be a pretty good guy and a good judge of character if I did say so myself.

"You gonna ally?" It came out so suddenly I almost didn't realize I'd planned to say it.

"Yeah, I think I should," Joy said. "I'm not really that good at... anything. Why? You looking for allies? But I guess that wasn't a very appealing pitch."

"No, it's okay," I said. "Everyone's good at something."

"I'm kind of good at running," Joy said.

"That's probably the most important thing to be good at," I said.

* * *

Joy Wincenty- District Twelve male

Aurelia was at the shelter-making station trying to wedge threw logs together to make a corner for her lean-to thingy. She jostled them and they all fell apart. I saw the fear and frustration flicker in her eyes before she picked them up and got back to work. I walked over and started helping her pick up the pile.

"It's okay. It just takes a few tries," I said.

"I don't feel like I'm any better at anything," she said.

"It's our first day. If people could learn to build a house in one day architects wouldn't be paid so well," I said.

"What have you been learning?" Aurelia asked.

"I've been trying camouflage," I said.

Aurelia perked up like a light was lit inside her face. "I always wanted to do that. Is it hard?"

"I don't wanna brag, but I've been finger-painting for at _least_ four years," I said with a cheesy grin. "You must be learning a lot from Erwin," I added.

"Stuff that worked for him won't really work for me," she said, and shrugged. "He's way bigger than I am."

"Pretty much everyone is way bigger than I am, which is why I've been learning camouflage. Can't kill me if you can't see me," I said. I pointed a finger at my temple to show my genius.

We got the shelter back in place and started wedging the sticks together to hold it up. There was something primally satisfying in constructing a home with your bare hands.

"Ryx is learning how to make fire," I said. "We're allies now. But I guess that kind of doesn't make sense, me learning to hide and him learning to make fire."

"Do you need another ally who knows how to make a shelter?" Aurelia asked.

"By golly, we do! How perfect is that?"

* * *

Aurelia Jackson- District Five female

No more crying. No more moping around and acting like I was dead already. I had a chance. I had allies. I could learn and you never know what could happen. Sometimes some random girl from Five wins the Games. Look at Meenah.

Once training time was over the fun could begin. To be honest, I wasn't really learning much. I tried, but there were just too many stations. I would get started on one and then another would catch my eye. I'd been to every station. I just hadn't learned anything.

It was my idea to have all the allies gather together just to hang out and get to know each other. We ordered food to the room and piled onto the couches.

"Everybody pay attention! He's about to try it," I said when it arrived.

"I can't believe you've never eaten pizza. When I preach about income inequality, this is what I mean," Camille said as Joy opened the box.

"Smells good," he said. He picked up a slice. Strings of cheese stretched from the piece to the rest of the pie. "Wow, cheesy."

"Like you," I said.

Joy took a bite of pizza. He squinted and kept a pensive expression as he chewed.

"S'good," he said.

"It's just about the best," I said.

"So, what's everyone's story?" Camille asked. "What brings our motley crew together?"

"I just got ridiculously unlucky. I had one slip in that lousy bowl. Not a single tesserae," I said.

"Me neither, but at least I had four slips," Camille said.

Soon enough the conversation drifted into things that were actually interesting, like how Ryx could make an origami crane or that Joy caught toads and fed them flies. That was what made my allies interesting. It wasn't that we had certain skills or benefits. It was that we were people.

* * *

Camille Igawa- District Nine female

There was no railing around the roof of the Games building. I could lean far over and see the tiny people dotting the ground like ants. I could climb up on the ledge and walk back and forth, my arms stretched out on either side of me. And I could take a step off and fall.

My stomach disappeared and my guts seemed to rearrange as I dropped about ten feet. Then The air around me gradually thickened until it was like falling through water and then through mud. Like a rubber band I reached the end of my fall and rebounded upwards. Some Capitolite shape-matrixing technology let the shield latch onto my extremities so my legs dropped under me. I floated over the ledge and landed neatly on my feet, feeling something like a dramatic avenging angel.

Even though my brain knew I wasn't going to fall, my body didn't appreciate the trick. The adrenaline rush I'd been hoping for pounded through my veins and made me feel like life was bubbling under my skin trying to get out. Each breath seemed fuller and more important. My cheeks were tight and flushed with the thrill of it all.

_So... what happens if I do_ this?

I dove headfirst off the ledge. I felt a funny twirling sensation as the force field tumbled me over and lobbed me back up the wall. I landed leaned forward and almost fell.

_How about_ this?

I stood with my back to the air and leaned back. The panicky feeling of leaning just a little too far back in a chair washed over me as I neared the point of no return. I rode the wave of disorientation and exhilaration I fell horizontally, then floated horizontally, then rose.

I tried every configuration that came to mind. Swan dive. Cannonball. Long jump. Flip. Each time the force field gently deposited me back on the roof, giddy and eager to go again.

As I geared up to do a sort of twisty torpedo jump, there was a crackle of feedback.

"_Please stop jumping off the roof_," a bored-sounding voice droned. In the background I heard half a cacophony of artificial noises. "_You keep making my alarm go off._"

I waved at nothing. "Sorry, security guy," I said. "Have a good day."

* * *

Calvary Warsaw- District Ten mentor

"You want to be allies... with a tree," I said.

"Yeah!" Joy said.

"Just, why?" I asked.

"If I have to explain it to you you probably won't get it," Joy said.

_Well you're not wrong._


	18. Two Roses and Angus

Remus Ray- District Five

I sat in front of the mirror as Blush hovered around behind me making little excited noises.

"I get to make a whole nother look for you?" she said. "This is going to be so much fun!" She started to spread out an array of colorful palettes and tubes- all the things I'd so yearningly peeked at when my mother had them out on her sink but was never bold enough to try.

"Now what sort of girl were we thinking?" Blush asked. She held a foxy red wig behind my head. "A statuesque stunner?" She replaced it with a black one. "A raven beauty?" Then a pink one. "A daring flirt?"

"Wow. I didn't even really think about that..." I'd been so enthralled with the makeup that I didn't think there was also hair to consider. I knew I did want long hair, though.

"I'm getting ahead of myself. Let's start with a basic foundation," Blush said. Of course it was the Capitol's idea of a "basic foundation", so it included mascara, powder, bronzer, and a coat of neutral lipstick. My face was heavy with product by the time she was done.

"Okay, it's ready!" Blush said after applying eyeshadow to my obviously closed eyes. I opened them and just... I'd never smiled that wide in my life. I was beautiful. For the first time in my life, I saw myself in a mirror.

"And now let's finish you up," Blush said. She picked up a honey-colored wig a shade darker than my natural hair and nestled it into place. I turned my face one way and the other in the mirror, running my fingers through my new hair.

"I love it," I said softly.

Blush looked into the mirror. "Who's that beautiful young lady? It's Remus Ray! Uh... Rema? Remina? Does that have a girl form?"

"It's Raina," I said. It wasn't something Blush would understand if I told her, but at night I always dreamed of a girl. I used to pretend I could dress her up or make her anything I wanted. She was everything I wanted to be. I dreamed of Raina.

* * *

Fryderyk Zieliński- District Eight male

Since I had a degenerative illness and all, I couldn't train as long as most of the Tributes. After I got out of breath and it got harder to walk, I retired to the Eight lounge to strategize with Tillo.

"Sixty-five roses, huh," Tillo said, mourning something she had never even gotten to know.

"We're almost there. We'll probably have a cure in the next ten years," I said. Just not soon enough for me.

"I want to ally with someone. Is there a system or what?" I asked.

"The mentors sort of have a grapevine where we discuss that sort of thing," Tillo said. She pensively rested her chin in her thumb and forefinger. "Off the top of my head I know that Antonio, Arthur, Remus and Andrea want allies."

Remus seemed kind of nice. He seemed kind of melancholy but I can imagine why. He also seemed phlegmatic, which was perfect for someone like me. I needed someone who wasn't all energy all the time. Someone who wouldn't mind laying low and staying still.

"How about Remus?" I asked.

"Seems like a sad sack but who am I to talk," Tillo said. She dialed Erwin on the videophone.

"Hey. Does Remus still want allies?" Tillo asked.

"Yes, but there's something you should know," he said. He waved over someone offscreen.

"Hey, Remus. I wanted to see if you wanted to ally with me," I said.

Remus came into view. At least I think he did. It looked sort of like Remus' face. It just had all sorts of makeup and a blonde wig.

"It's Raina," the answer came. It wasn't entirely a surprise. Rumors passed quick in the training room and there was word Remus wasn't what he looked like.

"Oh, okay. Hey, Raina. You want to ally with me?"

* * *

Angus Pastor- District Ten male

Bambi didn't seem like he liked talking about his Games. Understandable, of course. But the best way to learn how to win was to watch how someone else won. So I found the recording and played it on the projector wall.

Cool, Bambi's kind of like me, I thought while I watched the Capitol portion on the extended edition recording. He was shyer and quieter, but he seemed like a friendly guy. He liked to hang out with Velvet and started to come out of his shell as they spent more time together. It was weird seeing him in a fabricated romance. It was weird seeing him putting on a show that he was wooing this girl who was my age in the tape but had been dead for twenty years. I was watching a ghost. I wondered what kind of person Velvet was and if her parents still cried for her.

When the Games started, I wondered how Bambi could possibly have been the winner. Troy was the obvious frontrunner, him or Olivine. Bambi just kept to himself eating the tall grass and talking with Velvet. Someone sent them flowers, too. Trust a Capitolite to send flowers instead of water.

I was glad I hadn't pressed Bambi when I watched Velvet die. I couldn't imagine. I wished I couldn't imagine. I could imagine very well, except when I imagined, it wasn't Velvet but my little brother I accidentally smothered. What did that do to a person to know you caused someone's death? It made you into Bambi, I guess.

I paused the tape. I wanted to rewind it. But I didn't want to see it again. As it unfolded, unease had swelled into horror. I felt off-balance, like gravity had turned sideways. Bambi wasn't anything I thought. Bambi won by beating a girl to death as she tried to run. When I resumed the tape, I saw how he won. I saw the funny boy with the magic trick's lifeblood pouring out the throat Bambi slashed. And then the last boy be eaten from the inside by spiders while Bambi looked for him.

I knew then. I knew how to win. Seutonius had asked Bambi, and Bambi's face looked out at me from the screen as he answered.

"I thought of them as cattle."

* * *

**Raina is still listed as just "District Five" because Raina's form specifically said she's still searching and doesn't know exactly what she is or the significance of her dysphoria, so I just left it off.**

**Angus isn't allied with Fryderyk and Raina. I just added another POV because the chapter was short.**


	19. The Best Strongest Alliance Ever

Siobhan Hearse- District Six female

"Hey," I sort of stage-whispered to Arthur when I caught him at the poisons station. "Did you really volunteer?"

"Sure did," he said. He peered down at the bowl of leaves he was counting into piles.

"Why?" I asked. I'd never heard of a twelve-year-old volunteering. It had probably never happened ever.

Arthur turned into a grown-up in an instant. His face lost the still-forming possibilities of a child's and went all hard and old and set. He even breathed differently when he took a breath before he spoke.

"Because the Arena is better than where I come from," he said in a man's voice.

"Oh," I said. I felt bad for asking. I could imagine what that meant. Maybe his family was abusive or he was really poor and starving all the time. I didn't ask anything else. I'd already made him hurt enough.

"I was a slave," he said without me asking. "Not legally, maybe, but really."

I didn't know what to say. Of all the things I imagined, that wasn't even on the list. Slaves? A little kid? A little kid, working all day and getting beaten? I didn't know what to say. I was quiet as Arthur described his everyday life.

"There are lots of us," Arthur said, and then I was a grown-up too. "I'm going to win and save them all. And if I don't, I still never have to go back. It's a win-win." He turned to me with the darkest smile.

"I'm sorry," I said. And I left. I couldn't bear another second. The truth weighed me down like a chain on my ankle. I walked across the room like I was walking through knee-deep water. If I could stand it, I wanted to talk to him again. When I was strong enough, I'd try. A boy like that was something to hitch your wagon to.

* * *

Tony Gear- District Six male

I felt good about the Games. I could definitely win this. I was a strong, smart guy with a lot going for me. The only problem was I felt the same way about every other Tribute in the training room. They all looked strong and smart. They all looked like they had a chance to win. Rachel was building some sort of club at the improvised weapons station. Katrina was running water through a sock filter. Pik was trying his hand at throwing knives.

Siobhan caught my eye bent over a table. They were pretty eye-catching in general, plus I remembered how much fun we'd had during the parade. I peeked over their shoulder and they swiveled back at me like an owl.

"I'm making a circuit," they said. They pointed at the little parts. "See, it has to go all the way around with no breaks so the electricity can go through."

"Neat," I said. "What are you going to do with it in the Arena?"

"I dunno," They said, and they shrugged. "Guess it depends on the Arena."

I ran a few numbers in my head. I'd been working on swords and fishing. Siobhan knew engineering and stuff. And she was a smart kid with a good attitude. Plus the Capitolites would go nuts for the cool big brother and the clever little sister. We could go places.

"Hey, you want the best ally in the Games?" I asked.

"I suppose I should really say, 'Yeah, who is it'," Siobhan said with a sassy look.

"Hey, I can't promise you'll win, but I can promise you'll have a better chance," I said.

"Okay," Siobhan said, and they stuck out their hand. "But let's ask Arthur too. He's working on bombs and he's really... mature."

"Bombs, huh? Sounds like he has a pretty good chance too," I said.

* * *

Arthur Harrington- District Nine male

The boy kept staring at me. I was just trying to finally take advantage of some of the crazy Capitolite food in the public food court and he kept staring at me. A boy about my age, wide-eyed and openly gaping.

"Hey," the boy said after minutes of staring. "You're the Nine boy, right?"

"That's right," I said.

"My dad has a bet on you," the boy said.

"To win?" I asked.

"No," the boy said. "He thinks you'll die in the Bloodbath."

Oh, okay. Nice. Thanks for telling me.

"Who's he betting on to win?" I asked.

"The Ten boy," the boy said.

"Oh, good choice," I politely lied. Angus seemed like a really nice person, but he wasn't going to win. Not someone like him.

"Check it out," the boy said. He took a tablet out of his pocket and tapped the screen a few times until it showed a page of Tributes and their odds. I found myself in the list. My odds were 46:1. Odds of me dying in the bloodbath were 31:1. That kid's dad wouldn't make much money even if he was right.

_You know what? He's not going to be right._

I didn't have to be insulted or scared by the bet. It wasn't going to be right. I was going to survive the Bloodbath and the rest of the Games, too. For a good cause and also out of plain spite. There were going to be a lot of angry gamblers in a few weeks, because I wasn't going that fast. I was easy to count out- easy to forget. The only one who ever noticed me was the overseer beating me or my mother taking the beatings for me. The entire reason she wasn't here was the beating that finally went too far.

I got up from the table and walked away. I walked in one store after another, thinking back to all the times my mother told me to take life in my hands and enjoy the moment. I quickly discovered that Tributes were phenomenal advertising and that storekeepers gave stuff away free just so they could say we used it. I ate more candy than I'd seen in my whole life and walked back to my room hours later laden with every item I'd so much as looked at.

I lay in bed that night feeling like a different person. Not entirely different, just shifted in a small but permanent way. I wasn't afraid, for the first time in a long time. I was going to bed without having to worry at all about being shocked awake by an overseer dragging me out of bed for one punishment or another. My life was in my hands, for better or for worse. It was one shot in a hundred, but that was more than I'd ever had.


	20. BIG NEWS

**Hey sorry to get everyone's hopes up. I just wanted to tell you all that JAJ, Shiro and I just started a Survivor HG collab at **** s/13532121/1/The-First-Survivor-Games-Madagascar**** and we need SUBMISSIONS!**


	21. Three Loners

**An actual chapter this time!**

* * *

Rachel Larson- District Eleven female

The ruffles and cinches of my dress stretched across my skin as I tried to sit down. I huffed in frustration and pushed down at the chair until the seams threatened to break.

"Slow down," Hlenn said. "You're going to rip it."

"I should be wearing something else," I said. I managed to awkwardly sit on the corner of the chair.

"This is what's in style now. This is what the Capitolites want to see," Hlenn said.

I stared down at the maze of forks and spoons at the setting in front of me. "Which one is this again?" I asked, holding up the smallest fork.

"The dessert fork. And you start from the outside in," Hlenn reminded me.

_Oh, pardon me._ What did it matter? What did any of this matter? I wanted to be respectful to Hlenn- she won and all- but this was such a waste of energy. What a useless, worthless life these people led.

"When you speak, strive for a 'continental' accent," Hlenn said. "Widen your vowels and clip the ends of your sentences."

"Look-" I held myself back. "I know you're the expert, but this just doesn't seem important."

"This is what the Capitol wants," Hlenn repeated.

"Well, they're a bunch of stupid children," I said. "I'm sorry, but it's true."

"Yes, they are," Hlenn said. Her voice went quiet. "Do you think you'll win by your own skills? None of us did. The stupid children decide. So I gave them what they wanted and you should, too."

I hadn't thought of it that way. Most Tributes didn't, which was why most Tributes didn't win. Hlenn wasn't a watered-down people-pleaser. Hlenn was the survivor I wanted to be. I was ashamed I'd thought my respect of her was charitable. My respect was deserved. I shifted on the seat and arranged my dress more carefully. I wouldn't want it to get ripped.

* * *

Rigel Aspen- District Seven male

_Plip._

A drop of water spread on the bottom of the water bottle. On top if it I'd balanced another bottle, mouth to mouth. The bottom half of the top bottle was layered with mulch, clay, leaves, and sand. The top half contained water. Drop by drop, the dirty water seeped through the layers and came out clean, or at least cleaner, in the bottom bottle.

_I made water_, I thought, with some of the pleased pride I sometimes saw when a neighborhood mama cat nursed her kittens. I squatted by my bottle and looked at the still surface of the water. In another few hours I might have a whole half-bottle.

The throwing axe station was just asking for trouble. I didn't need to remind people that Seven was the only outlying District known for its weapons skills. Or that I was a big, burly guy. With my build I'd used the heavy two-handed axes more than the single-hand hatchets, but that was a skill to save for later. For the training days I was thinking more along the lines of snares and shelter-making.

I sensed the Careers coming before I saw them. It was the absence that preceded them- the quiet and stillness of a forest when a predator came through. I turned around and stood as they approached, hoping they'd pass by.

"You're a pretty big guy," Sagar said in the tone of someone graciously extending a compliment to someone nearly but not quite his equal.

"Thanks," I said, since there wasn't really any other way to respond. No one really knows how to accept a compliment.

"We've decided you have what it takes to join us. Interested?" Cyrene said.

A double-edged sword if there ever was one. Join and you're not a target to anyone else, just to your allies. Don't join and you have an enemy you're far away from. Join and you have an enemy sleeping next to you every night. Don't join and you get stabbed in the face. Join and you get stabbed in the back. The deadliest thing that can happen to any pre-Games Tribute is to get asked to join the Careers.

I looked from one Career to another. Cyrene looked like the kind that wouldn't unnecessarily kill me. Andromeda looked friendly. Medusa wasn't paying attention to me. Sagar was obviously the peacock of the group. Percy looked normal.

Then I locked eyes with Lyon. None of the Careers had entered my mind past their obvious existence and danger. Lyon seemed like he'd seen me before. There was an exultant expectation in his expression. It was the look of a bully who finally got his target away from where anyone could see them. It chilled me to my core.

"No thanks," I said. I immediately regretted the bluntness and worked to soften it. "I'm just going it alone. A lot of the past Victors have been loners."

* * *

Katrina Moonshadow- District Seven female

No allies for me. I knew my own plan and my own strengths and I didn't want anyone else going their own way. I'd just hone my own skills and take care of myself.

_This should be great for me_, I thought as I shouldered the crossbow. It was the closest thing to a firearm there could be in the Arena. I hadn't fired the air rifle in years, after a crackdown following some anti-Capitol sentiment in Seven, but it's like riding a bike. I maneuvered the bow in the pocket of my shoulder in what felt like a familiar movement.

I pulled the trigger. The arrow barely skimmed the side of the target.

_Rats. Well, gotta get back in practice_. I fired again. The arrow hit almost the same spot. At least I was consistent.

I squinted down the bow to get a clear sight picture of my target. I slowly eased off on the trigger until it gently released. The arrow hit slightly closer to the middle of the target but far higher than my first two shots.

Firing a crossbow was more awkward than firing a rifle. It was less neatly shaped and it weighed unevenly. I thought it was just a matter of practicing and getting a feel for it, but thirty arrows later, I hadn't made any real progress. But thirty arrows wasn't much when it came to marksmanship, so I carried on.

Two hours later, I admitted it. I set the crossbow down and moved on to another station.

_Archery. Okay,_ I thought. Maybe this is my thing.

It wasn't. And neither were throwing stars or spears. I didn't want to admit it, but if I kept on like this, I didn't have a chance in the Games. I wasn't good at weapons. That was just the truth. All that buildup about my father and the advantages I got from him, and it didn't matter. But the one thing that definitely won the Games was adaptability. So I swallowed my pride and turned to the less flashy but coldly pragmatic survival skills.


	22. Five Musketeers I Guess

Cerise Dupin- District Eight female

For the first time in years- my whole life, when I really thought about it- I was alone. No parents, no friends, and no boyfriend. I was my own person and I was entirely able to live on my own, but it very much was different. When something made me smile, I would think of who I wanted to tell and share it with, and no one was there. There would be no one with me when I curled up in a makeshift shelter in a desolate Arena. Everything in my life was me. I didn't know if I was enough to fill up an entire life.

Training was the best thing to occupy my mind. I still got sad whenever Fryderyk and I caught sight of each other across the room, but I felt free, too. I could do what I wanted whenever I wanted. I didn't have to make plans around anyone else's schedule. I'd never in the slightest resented Fryderyk for his illness, but I got a delirious joy out of running as far as I wanted as hard as I wanted on the track and not having to stop until I was out of breath, not him. It wasn't as good as being with him, but it was a good I wouldn't have had otherwise.

I probably shouldn't have been staring. It was just- and I'm not saying it's bad or something anyone should be ashamed of- but if you wear an outfit like that, you may not be doing it for anyone else, but you know you're going to get looked at. Where I came from, what Camille was wearing was something "well-bred" people would frown at. "Well-bred" people would say it was something you only wore if you were part of a profession people had half a dozen euphemisms for so they could pretend they didn't know the real word. But that was nothing but shallow, classist pomposity. Camille looked _really cool,_ and I kept peeking to get another look.

Camille turned her gaze on me, her black-lined eyes staring like an owl. "Did I grow a third eye?" she asked

_Ahh! Busted_! I thought, and my face reflected it. "I just think it looks really cool. Does it mean anything?"

Camille hunched her shoulders and held her hands in front of her in a dramatic pose. "It's for the downtrodden and misunderstood who rebel against conformist standards and the rigidity of society. But actually that's all baloney. I'm just a poor little rich girl, to be honest."

"Me too, actually," I said.

"Makes you feel kind of bad, doesn't it? Getting all this special treatment and you know you didn't earn it," Camille said.

"Exactly!" I said. "I want to make a difference somehow."

"Everyone does, I guess. I sure dress different enough," Camille said. "Hey, you want to come meet my allies?"

"I think I do," I said.

* * *

Pik Reynolds- District Eleven male

I should have just gone for it. I knew I needed allies, but by the time I finished scoping everyone out, everyone I wanted to ally with was already taken. Maybe it was because I was scared of change. I knew I needed to make new friendships and make them solid before we went into the Arena, but it was hard to put myself out there, because I already _was _out there. I was in a new city when I'd never traveled more than ten miles in any direction from the spot where I was born. Everything was artificial and new here instead of the natural seasonal sameness of Eleven. And so I ended up lurking around the edges of the training room, watching allies dwindle away. By the time I got out of my funk about the only ones left were Andrea, Jay, Harper, Rigel, Angus, and my District partner 'Switch'.

What did I want in an ally? Someone strong enough to fight but slow enough that I could outrun them. Someone similar to my skill level- high enough to be useful but not high enough that they would decide to get rid of me. Someone I could beat in a fight but could fight with me against others.

Andrea was an option. She was pretty small, though. I wasn't sure she'd be able to fend off many of the Tributes. Jay was just plain too young. He wasn't the youngest here, but he just felt young somehow. It was probably his innocent look. I didn't think he'd last past the Bloodbath. Harper was a no, _duh_. Angus seemed like a really nice guy. He was always smiling, and I'd seen him get Siobhan a box of batteries off a shelf she couldn't reach. Rigel was strictly a loner. Rachel? Maybe, but I didn't think she'd say yes. Well, if both of her would, anyway.

Andrea, Angus, or Rachel. A decision that could save my life or end it.

_Angus. There, done._

Angus was the one that lingered at the front of my mind. I wasn't one to hem and haw and agonize over every element of a decision. I preferred to just make it and commit. Maybe not the best strategy in this situation, but there really wasn't any knowing what was best. I didn't know the Arena or how any of them acted when their lives were on the line. All I had were first impressions and gut feelings, and both of those led me to Angus.

* * *

Andrea D'Amour- District Three female

Wiress had the strangest aura I'd ever encountered. Not like those touchy-feely color halos people claim they can see. She just had this nearly physical demeanor of strangeness and difference that everyone could sense even though there was nothing to see or touch. She didn't stand right. She didn't look at things right. She didn't talk right. I'd tried to make conversation with her half a dozen times. With all my charm and all my people-reading skills, I'd managed to get from a distracted glance to a few words and a smile. While we were halfheartedly practicing table manners in the Three lounge, I made another move.

"Beetee says you're a genius," I said. I hoped she would elaborate, or at least respond.

Wiress set down her fork. Her face got longer and the hollows under her eyes got sharper.

"I was once," she said.

"What does that mean?" I asked. I had a sudden flash of intuition. I'd seen the flash of orange some mornings when I came out earlier than Wiress noticed and she hadn't put away the pill bottle yet. It wasn't morphling, so I'd thought nothing of it. But it wasn't nothing at all.

"That's all I ever was," Wiress said. "All my points went into intelligence. There was nothing left for anything else. It didn't bother me. I liked what I was. But what do you do? What do you do when your mind dies inside you?"

"What?" I asked. I'd never heard her say so many words at once.

"We're all afraid of when we get old and our minds go. What do you do when it starts when you're thirty?" Wiress said.

_Early-onset dementia_. I wasn't a doctor like my fathers, but I did live with them. I knew plenty about plenty of sicknesses, even ones outside my hopeful future in obstetrics. Early-onset dementia was one of the cruelest things the universe could do to anyone. We had medication now that drastically slowed the progress, but we'd never really cure any neurological problem. Humans brains were paradoxically so complex they couldn't completely understand themselves.

I studied Wiress to determine what would help her. It was obvious she valued her intelligence- not necessarily out of ego, but because it was the core of her personality. She was dignified enough to not tell most people and resilient enough to keep living. What she needed was what most people needed: a little validation.

"You made a firearm, right? That was awesome," I said.

She smiled softly. "I'm still the only one," she said.

"And you're still smart. You take medication. These days we can slow it down practically for a whole lifetime."

"I feel it," she said. "Little holes in my mind. I'm still sharp enough to feel every one of them."

"But the more you use it, the longer it takes," I said. "My parents told me that. They're doctors. They say if you exercise your brain it keeps it strong."

"Crosswords... ciphers... equations. I do them every day," Wiress said.

"Do what you did before," I said. "Win the Hunger Games. Help me win it. Teaching is the best way to learn. Teach me," I said.

For the first time, I saw light in Wiress' face.


	23. Interviews and Harper

**I ended up with only Harper left so here's the interviews too instead of an awkward stubby chapter.**

* * *

Harper Newman- District Twelve female

There were twenty-three other children in the Capitol with me. That was twenty-three chances to make a friend. I'd made friends a few times in my life. I just never kept them.

"Hey," I said to Rachel. She was the girl from Eleven, so she was my first stop. "What are you up to?"

"Seeing how this crossbow is put together," she said. She turned back to it without saying anything else.

I moved in closer. Maybe she didn't know I wanted to be friends.

"Can I help you?" she asked.

"I'm trying to make friends," I said. "Do you like hurting people?"

"Noooooo," Rachel said. She got up and moved to another station, looking back over her shoulder at me like I smelled bad.

"Hey," I said to Angus. "I'm looking for a friend."

"I always like meeting new friends," Angus said.

"You want to come explore the building with me after training is done? Aicalzaara said I could," I said.

"Who's Aicalzaara?" Angus asked.

"God," I said.

"Hey," I said to Pik after he threw a knife. "You're doing pretty good with that."

"Thanks," he said. He put down the knife he was holding and smiled.

"I've never used a knife before. Not to hurt someone, I mean," I said,

"Me, neither. It tears me up to think of cutting someone," Pik said.

"Oh, I don't mind that part," I said.

"Hey," I said to Camille.

* * *

Caesar Flickerman- Interviewer

"What brings you to the Games?" I asked Alsace.

"Honor," he said. "Eight years ago, my cousin Lyon was robbed of his victory. I'm here to finally make it right."

"My, you look positively radiant," I said about Andromeda, who was glowing in her cinch-waisted hourglass gown. She smiled and her eyes lit up.

"Thanks! I love it," she said.

"How do you intend to play the Games?" I asked.

"I have my own strengths and my own weaknesses. I'm going to use what I have and compensate for what I don't. Like everyone else, pretty much," she said.

"I'm what the Games needs," Sagar said. "I'm a strong volunteer who knows what he's worth and isn't ashamed to say it. I'm here, I'm deadly, and I'm going to stay. Here I come, ladies and gentlemen."

"What would you like people to know about you?" I asked Medusa.

"I'd like for them not to know much. I'm sure the other Tributes know there's a lot to be afraid of, but I don't want them to know what exactly that is until it's too late."

"What's your big asset in the Games?" I asked Ryx.

"My intelligence," he said. "I work really hard to always be studying and learning. I've saved up a lot of stuff over the years and I'm ready to use it. You'll have to be pretty quick to outthink me."

"You're a Leo, right?" Andrea asked me. "I have a fortune for you."

"Ooh, what is it?" I asked.

"Your personal relationships need space to grow. If you're feeling someone slipping away from you, the best thing to do is give them some space. It's important for both people to have their own identity." she turned to the audience. "And what are the odds, I see great futures for every one of you!"

Cyrene looked friendly and inviting in her soft blue dress tailor-made for a tropical island. She sat easily in her chair as she gave me warm answers.

"I'm just happy for this opportunity. It's been wonderful seeing our amazing Capitol and everyone has been so friendly."

Percy's interview was like pulling teeth. What had seemed like a perfectly normal and well-spoken boy became a bundle of nerves and stage fright as soon as he sat down. And when I asked about his brother, that was all she wrote. He just didn't know what to say, so in the end I did most of the talking.

"Here's Erwin Jackson's precious granddaughter!" I said as Aurelia sat down, wearing a green tuxedo.

"Oh, it's just Aurelia," she said. "I'm not as exciting as he was. But I'll do my best and you never know what might happen."

"Presenting..._ Raina_!" I announced, drums rolling as the gorgeous ruched ballgown came into view. Raina sat down with a shy smile.

"We're all very excited to be part of your debut appearance," I said.

"I brought a little book I made. I want to read a few pages if that's okay," Raina said.

"Of course," I said. "I'm sure it's adorable." And it was.

"It's great to be here. And don't be sad when I go, because I'll be back in a few weeks," Tony said. His easy demeanor and cheerful wink gave you the feeling that he really would be.

Siobhan flitted to her seat in the fairylike dress stylists usually gave to Tributes her age.

"Everyone thinks I won't win because I'm young. So no one will come at me at the Bloodbath because what a stupid waste of time. So I won't die. If I don't die I win," she explained with helpful hand gestures.

In Rigel's silence, he shouted. There was no need for words. His presence was his message. He was strong, formidable, and daunting.

"So turns out I'm kind of terrible at weapons," Katrina said. "But I'm good at making fires so I got that going for me which is something. I also did water purifying and some other stuff and to be honest I'm really bad at interviews so can we stop mine early?"

The audience had clearly been wondering about the satin sheet draped over... something on the stage. Fryderyk revealed the surprise when he pulled off she sheet to reveal a grand piano.

"Instead of talking about my talents I thought I'd show you," he said. Hearing a performance like that was once in a lifetime. What a waste to squander it on the Arena.

"I don't think there's much to say that others haven't said," Cerise said, wearing a sharp pantsuit. "I'm going to do what I think will keep me alive and I'm going to try to be the only one left."

"You're our youngest-ever volunteer," I said to Arthur. "What makes you think someone like you can win the Games?"

"I've survived this long in worse conditions and I know what it takes to stay alive," he said. I wondered what that meant and decided in the end I was better off not knowing.

"What are your plans for if you win?" I asked Camille.

"I'm going to help the less fortunate in my District. A lot of people don't know how difficult life is for those that aren't privileged. There are people out there breaking their backs just to keep their families afloat. It isn't fair that-" time ran out before she finished.

I appreciated Ten's devotion to their brand, as reflected in Angus' brown-and-white jacket.

"I'm going to roll with it and take it as it comes," he said. "I don't think there's much point in making rigid plans. None of us know what will happen until we're there. I'll adapt to whatever I find."

_I am a dignified, beloved Panem icon. People respect me. Yes, I am sitting across from a potted plant in a chair wearing a white dress. Yes, we're going to be here until the time runs out. But I am _not_ asking the plant any questions._

"Oh, you know, I'm just going to try my hardest and see what I can do," Pik said, managing the herculean accomplishment of being more boring than a plant.

"I hear there's quite the story behind your nickname," I asked 'Switch'.

"These two guys attacked me in an alley and apparently I fought them both and won," Rachel said, and shrugged her arms. "I don't really remember it but I'm sure it was super badass."

Jay had a strange way of talking like he was always trying to keep a lie straight. It was odd, since he only talked about normal things like his family. Some people are just awkward, I guess.

"I'm more than willing to kill people, so if you want a show, sponsor me," Harper said. Plenty of people angled for the crowd, but few so honestly as Harper. It was unnerving to see a child who so clearly saw our love for violence.

"There we have them folks! Twenty-four of our country's finest, risking it all to bring us another year of spectacle and glory. Happy Hunger Games and may the odds be ever in their favor!"


	24. The Last Night

**I decided to do shorter POVs this time so I could fit more people.**

* * *

Queenie Hesperaloe- District Ten female

_I have no one to blame but myself. I'm the one who said we should let her volunteer. It's my own fault I have to cart her around to 'show her the Games building'._

In hindsight I should have gotten a wagon. Queenie was bulky. Her pot was almost too big for me to wrap my arms around it. I had to carry her little stretches at a time with rests in between. I would have gotten an Avox to do it, but Queenie was my cross to bear. I wasn't going to foist her on some mutilated Districter who had enough to worry about.

"Oooh, is that Queenie?" a high-pitched voice came from ahead of us. I stretched my neck around her fronds and saw four young teens decked out in the latest fashions.

"Oh, I want to meet her!" what seemed to be her gentleman friend said. He ran up and almost smashed into her pot.

"Can I have your autograph?" the first teen said.

"Excuse me, but Queenie cannot write," I said.

"Awwww I want her autograph," she said.

"It's okay, I'll get you one!" her boyfriend said. He reached out and plucked one of Queenie's leaves.

"Hey!" I protested. I yanked here pot back protectively.

"I want one too!" the other two teens said almost at the same time. One snatched a leaf before I could evade her.

"Stop that!" I said. I balanced Queenie's pot on my hip so I could slap at their hands.

"Ooh, Queenie's giving away autographs!" someone in one of the shops shouted. More people started coming toward us. I turned and awkwardly waddled away toward the elevator, pursued by would-be autograph hounds.

"SECURITY!"

* * *

Fryderyk Zielinski- District Eight male

I read a book once where there was a character who went to war and came back to find his entire family had died while he was gone. He started to walk, and when he was finally done walking, he made candies. He took all his sadness and put it into the candies, so they tasted like root beer and strawberries and one other thing that was hard to put into words. In the same way I slid my pen along my paper and wrote my requiem. It sounded like verdancy and cherries and dying.

A-flat major. An unconventional choice for a requiem, but the right one. Each piece was its own rightness and the composer merely found it. Like my mental state, the music was full of change, almost to the point of dissonance. It was adagio throughout, with abortive little dolce vivaces that faded before they reached their fullness. Sometimes I paused for a moment, and when I did, I could see the shine of the ink and how its newness faded into permanence as it bled into the page.

One night wasn't enough to write a death. My requiem was only a few bars when I set it down for the first and last time. It was written by me and for me. It was me written. It was unfinished, and in that it was my perfect reflection.

* * *

Angus Pastor- District Ten male

It was midnight and none of us were sleeping. We had one night to be sure we would be alive. I was sure that none of us, intentionally or not, were spending it sleeping.

In all the thoughts swirling in my head, one rose to the top over and over. It was regret. Maybe not exactly regret, because none of this was my fault, but it was a feeling of loss, of something we all wish hadn't happened. I didn't know which of us it was, but come tomorrow, many of us would be gone. Many of the children I'd met and mingled with in this building just... wouldn't be. I hardly knew anything about any of them. I didn't know if maybe Siobhan made brownies every Sunday with her mother and her mother would never be able to eat brownies again. I didn't know if Tony would have grown up to adopt three abandoned children that would never have a father now. Or if none of us would ever have done anything but we were all still people and we had value just because we were alive.

That was what was lost: what we were supposed to be. We were supposed to be children. We were supposed to be getting milk mustaches and playing MASH and making those folded fortune-tellers. We should have been getting our first crushes and turning eighteen and deciding what to do with our lives. But weren't going to do anything with our lives. Only one of us had one.

* * *

Joy Wincenty- District Twelve male

Maybe I was too young or too sheltered to understand the Hunger Games. No one could really understand it who hadn't been there, even the Careers. I was pretty sure I didn't, anyway, because I wasn't really scared. Probably I would be when it started. But here, trying to sleep on the night before, I was just really wired.

Most little kids daydream about being in some dangerous adventure like the Arena. We wonder how we would survive in the wild and all the cool things we could do if we didn't have to worry about school and rules. We all knew it was just pretend and that real life wouldn't be so much fun. But it wasn't real life yet. It was tomorrow.

I knew it was dangerous and I even knew I would probably die, even though I didn't really accept what that meant. But still... there could be so much in the Arena. There had been Arenas made of candy. Arenas with dinosaurs. I could see a _dinosaur_. The Gamemakers had so much imagination. They made whole worlds. Panem could be so magical if they used it for something good.

* * *

Aurelia Jackson- District Five female

_Dear Zeus..._

That one didn't last long. Zeus may be the head god, but he's kind of... a terrible person. I didn't think he cared much for me, since I was too young for the only thing he pretty much ever did.

_Dear Ares, please remind the Careers that I am very small and weak so it is not really war to kill me, it's just killing. Please tell them to fight among themselves and not waste their efforts on me._

_Dear Athena, please help me come up with an idea that will get me out of the Arena. This should be a really fun challenge for you since I am very helpless. Since you are very smart I think you will enjoy the challenge._

_Dear Poseidon, I don't think you really apply here but I didn't want to leave you out so how are you doing? Oh sorry I got distracted. Someone was making a bunch of noise outside my window._

_Dear Hades... I'll probably be there in a few days so I'll just tell you face-to-face._

* * *

Siobhan Hearse- District Six female

Arthur and I were huddled in the crack between my bed and the wall. This wasn't really something Tony could be a part of. He was a lot bigger. He had a chance to win outside of a miracle. I'm sure he was scared too, but not the same way as we were.

"Have you ever seen someone die?" I asked.

"Three times," Arthur said. "One because she got beat so bad. The other two got heatstroke."

"I saw my grandmother's body in the coffin, but she'd already been dead. She looked like wax," I said.

"So do fresh dead people," Arthur said.

"Where do you think they went?" I asked.

"I never thought about it," Arthur said.

"I think they went somewhere," I said. "I don't know where, but somewhere better than this."

"Why?" Arthur asked.

"People are just special. We do things animals don't. We wouldn't be special like this if we didn't have souls," I said.

"Then why did we make the Games?" Arthur asked.

"Because humans are special," I said, with far less reverence.

* * *

Harper Newman- District Twelve female

Before I left, Uncle Kennard told me to be good. He said he knew I was good. He said remember what we'd talked out- how if I couldn't see the person who was saying something, it was probably one of the not-real voices. Aicalzaara said it was Uncle Kennard who wasn't real.

I tapped my head with my fist like I did sometimes when I was trying to know what I should think. I started tapping my head against the wall when the thoughts got louder. Aicalzaara was telling me that when the Games started, I should kill people. He didn't say who. I guessed that meant everyone. Everyone else would be killing people too. They finally figured out I was right the whole time. Maybe Uncle Kennard was the crazy one. That was kind of funny. He worked all day with crazy people and he was actually the crazy one. I still missed him, though, him and Mom. The only time I ever felt like I was where I was supposed to be was when I was with them.


	25. Tubes

Kazuo Braun- District One mentor

I knew what Alsace was thinking. It shone from his eyes. Over and over I'd told him, but five days of mentorship couldn't outfight six years of loss.

"Don't do it," I said. "Win the Games. Live your life, not your dead cousin's."

"I'll do both," he said.

* * *

Blake Armani- District One mentor

Andromeda didn't think I understood her. That was rich. All Careers had the same story in the end. We thought we weren't enough unless we won. Even if we thought we were the greatest things on Earth, we still thought we had to win. We never had value, only our actions.

* * *

Pray Jager- District Two mentor

Medusa was cold, and andry, and focused, and relentless. It was years like this that made me fall in love with mentoring all over again. Looking at her about to go into the Arena brought me back three decades to my own last moments before the Games. If only they let me volunteer every year.

* * *

Ava Hanson- District two mentor

I couldn't imagine what it was like to be someone like Sagar. He was just... confident. He didn't pick himself apart or worry about a thousand little things he could do better at. He didn't feel like a failure any time someone said anything negative about him. The only one who had to like him was himself. I wished I could be like that.

* * *

Gidget Ford- District Three mentor

Andrea was doing that thing some people do when they're worried and they try to cheer everyone else up because if they focus on someone else they don't feel so scared. Ryx was doing the same thing, so until the tubes came down it was two kids assuring each other that they would do fine and hugging and holding hands and huddling as far away from the tubes as possible. Before they went up they told each other maybe they'd meet after the Bloodbath and say hi. So many best-laid plans of mice and men.

* * *

Shane Donegal- District Four mentor

Every time I saw the tubes it brought me back. Like Percy, I'd been somewhat trained but nowhere near prepared for what the Games really were. And if only one of us could have won, I'd have wanted it to be Percy. I volunteered wholeheartedly. I'd wanted to fight and kill and be the sole survivor. Percy did it so someone else could be safe. That was the only reason to fight a war.

* * *

Careen Ellis- District Four mentor

I had a feeling I'd see Cyrene again- face to face, that is. I'd didn't get that feeling often. Of course, I wasn't always right when I did. But this was the best chance we'd had in a long time. She stood with her back to me, facing the empty tube, her hands sedately clasped behind her back. I could see her reflection in the glass. It wasn't afraid, nor was it arrogant. It merely anticipated.

* * *

Meenah Turbine- District Five mentor

It was just more and more things with Raina. Changing everything she thought she was. Coming to the Capitol. And now facing the tube that would bring her to near certain death. Probably death in less than three days, to be honest. How was I supposed to prepare her for that? All I could tell her was that spiders were edible.

* * *

Erwin Jackson- District Five mentor

"It's okay," Aurelia said. "You don't have to worry about me." She said it in a quiet and very grown-up voice. She didn't want me to hear the thinness in it.

No, you shouldn't worry about me. I didn't hope for her to win. I didn't hope for her not to die. I knew all that. I hoped that when she died she wasn't scared.

* * *

Lancia Audren- District Six mentor

It's a chilling job to have to stand in front of two children every year and lie that you think they'll make it back. Sometimes I believed it, but I'd never been right yet. Tony might. He really might. He had an above-average chance and that's all anyone could ever hope for. It was chilling to know this was the last time I would see Siobhan. She might come home. She really might. But she had a below-average chance in a situation where the average chance was one in twenty-four. Counting on that was an exercise in futility.

* * *

Loki Saberhagen- District Seven mentor

"So, what's the plan?" Rigel asked me with a wry smile.

"Run for it," I said.

"Yeah, that's what I was thinking," he said. "Lucky me. I have my own personal assassin."

Katrina looked over with the kind of face you get when it's either laugh or cry. "I've never been so happy to be a girl," she said.

* * *

Tillo Peters- District Eight mentor

Fryderyk and Cerise shared years of stories and emotions in the moments they silently looked at each other.

"No regrets," Fryderyk said.

"I do," Cerise said. "This wasn't enough time for me. I never had to face death before."

"It gets easier," Fryderyksaid. He smiled. "I hope there are pens there for you."

She smiled back. "I know there's music."

* * *

Nassor Doyle- District Nine mentor

This time I couldn't do it. I waited outside the tube room, my back against the door as I slid to the ground. Sometimes it was just too much. There was an old man in there with the face of a child and a girl who wore the colors of the death that would soon wear her. I couldn't bear to watch.

* * *

Bambi Kirkland- District Ten mentor

"I'm scared. I'm scared. I'm scared." Angus wrung his hands as he paced from one side of the room to the other, quivering. He looked at me with wide child eyes like I was the only window in a burning building. When the tube came down, he made sounds I usually only heard in the Bloodbath.

* * *

Calvary Warsaw- District Ten mentor

Two Avoxes trundled Queenie into the tube and set her down. I waved goodbye as she rose out of view. It was my easiest year mentoring yet.

* * *

Hlenn Rambutan- District Eleven mentor

It stirred up so many memories to be in the tube room again. I was much more like Pik than I was like Rachel, but of the two, she was the more likely to win. That was ironic or something, I suppose, because I was a Victor. Pik was a bundle of potential energy, all his muscles already tensed to run. Rachel was making jokes none of us heard and laughing frenetically in were all nervous, all in our own ways.

* * *

Nubu Sanders- District Twelve mentor

Jay politely got into his tube when it arrived. He hadn't said a word since we arrived, which was unusual for him. He seemed dazed. I remembered that feeling. Harper wandered the room at first but was easily persuaded when I shooed her toward the tube. She was never argumentative with me. It just seemed like I didn't exist to her.


	26. Countdown

Pik Reynolds- District Eleven male

I smelled the Arena before I saw it. It smelled like home.

* * *

Katrina Moonshadow- District Seven female

I could smell the water in the air. The water and the mud. We were in a swamp. All around our platforms there was water. In the center of the ring the Cornucopia was perched on a floating raft. Outside the circle of platforms there was a ring of thick, tall cattails. That at least gave us a chance of cover.

_59, 58, 57..._

* * *

Antonio Gear- District Six male

Arthur was right next to me. I felt an instant of panic as I swept the faces, but then I found Siobhan five platforms away. My heart started pounding. I would never forgive myself if we didn't get to her in time.

_51, 50, 49..._

* * *

Andromeda Dior- District One female

The Cornucopia glittered with weapons. The metallic shine caught everyone's eyes in the matte brown and muted green of the Arena. I tensed to jump and _then leaned back in confusion. How deep is the water?_

_45, 44, 43..._

* * *

Joy Wincenty- District Twelve male

Camille was on the platform next to me. We flashed nervous smiles at each other, feeling safer with an ally by our side. But our alliance probably wouldn't survive the Bloodbath intact.

_38, 37, 36..._

* * *

Cerise Dupin- District Eight female

You don't win the Games without killing. If I didn't risk my life to get one now, I would certainly die later. I locked my eyes on the pile of sharp metal in the Cornucopia. It wasn't too important what I got, but it was life or death that I got something.

_30, 29, 28..._

* * *

Alsace Cartier- District One male

He was two platforms away. Rigel was ten feet away from me. All I needed to do was grab a weapon and come for him. He couldn't run far enough to get away from me.

_22, 21, 20..._

* * *

Cyrene Longuemare- District Four female

Andromeda was the closest Career to me. I caught her eye and she looked back at me. We looked between us to our obvious target.

_14, 13, 12..._

* * *

Arthur Harrington- District Eleven male

All around between the platforms and the Cornucopia there were supply-filled plastic bags. The bags were valuable on their own as receptacles and waterproofing materials and whatever was inside helped even more. I picked out a bag containing a tiny bottle. Water wasn't a problem, but clean water was.

_10, 9, 8..._

* * *

Switch Larson- District Eleven female

_This would be a really really good time for the badass thing. Come on come on turn super badass. Up up and away? Excelsior? SHAZAM? Please please please..._

_5, 4, 3, 2, 1_

* * *

**Surprise it's not New Orleans it's a swamp. Because New Orleans is swampy. I was gonna call it "Get Outta Mah Swamp" but that was too obvious so I had to go the obtuse route. Technically it's a marsh btw since it lacks trees and is more open, but Katrina didn't know the specific distinction.**


	27. Bloodbath

Angus Pastor- District Ten male

I did not like the way Cyrene and Andromeda were looking at me. Why were they looking at me? I wasn't their competition. Well, I was, but not much. I'd been thinking about going in a bit to grab some of the bags, but they were making me think better of it. I'd just run for the cattails while they were getting weapons.

When the Games began, I jumped into the water. I hit bottom when it was waist-high and sank in a few extra inches. I started wading toward the cattails as fast as I could.

Cyrene and Andromeda followed me.

I had an advantage with my longer legs trying to run through water, but they were fast. Cyrene flanked around me and I was caught between them when Andromeda came up behind me. I'd never expected such flawless teamwork from Careers. Cyrene, as the taller one, came at me and shoved me back off-balance so I fell toward Andromeda, who climbed on top of me. I was already floundering under the water's surface and they could have easily drowned me with their combined weight, but they didn't want to wait that long. Cyrene held down my body so I was struggling to reach the surface and Andromeda braced herself behind my head and crossed her arms across my neck. She leaned back and twisted until my neck radiated strain and agony. I thought of Will watching and was glad Andromeda and Cyrene blocked the view. There was a clean pop and it didn't hurt anymore.

* * *

Harper Newman- District Twelve female

_Kill them kill them all._

Aicalzaara said it didn't matter which one. Any one, as long as I was killing. I ran toward the golden horn-shaped thing filled with weapons. I wanted the spear. It was the longest, so I could kill people the farthest away. Close or far I didn't care, but it was easier to reach far away with the spear.

I reached the platform and clambered on after a few false starts when it dipped under my weight. Another boy had grabbed the spear so I took a long knife instead. It slid along the platform and fit perfectly into my hand.

I went to jump off the platform and felt a burning scrape in my side. I hit the water face-first and clawed at the water to right myself. The water was red around me when I surfaced. I looked at my side and saw the gaping wound seconds before my legs folded and I slid back underwater. I grabbed at the raft to pull my head out of the water and tried to flop back onto it, but I couldn't lift myself out. I l stayed there, my head lying on the raft, and I seemed to be getting colder.

_What do I do?_

But there was no answer. There were no voices in my head at all. It was very peaceful. It must be what it's like for Mom and Uncle Kennard. It was wonderful to close my eyes and rest.

* * *

Aurelia Jackson- District Five female

The water was up to my waist as I splashed toward the cattails. They were taller than I was. They would hide me and let me slip away until the Careers dispersed. I hadn't grabbed anything. None of the supplies would be any good to me, because I would have to die to get any of them. I would just have to learn to go without.

I heard someone screaming as I ran. He would scream, then get cut off suddenly, then scream again. They're drowning someone, I thought. What a cruel way to kill someone. How do you look someone in the eye for minutes on end as they struggle for their lives? A spear or an axe is done in a flash. Drowning is personal.

I have one advantage, I thought as I ran. No one needs to come after me. I wasn't top priority for anyone. I wasn't strong like Rigel or Tony. I was just a little girl running away. They could come for me later, whenever they wanted, or they could let the Arena swallow me up.

My arm parted the cattails as I reached the ring. Their roots brushed against my legs like ghostly fingers. The first row of cattails bent back into position behind me, drawing a curtain between me and the Cornucopia. And as they did, I felt the sting in the back of my head. I was gone before my face hit the water.

* * *

Fryderyk Zielinski- District Eight male

There was no choice for me. I would be lucky if I even made to any of the supplies. My only chance was to run, and even then, I was at the mercy of the Careers. If they targeted others, I would live. If any of them came for me, I would die.

The water tugged at my legs as I tried to run. Churning brown foam swirled around me, stirred up by my movements. I hoped desperately there weren't alligators near the Cornucopia, because there certainly were alligators somewhere. I tasted mud in my mouth from the water droplets flying up around me.

Halfway to the cattails, I had to stop. I bent forward and concentrated on taking deep breaths and puffing as I exhaled to get the most oxygen from every breath. I straightened back up and saw at once the most beautiful and most frightful scene of my life. Far in the distance, I saw Cerise diving off the Cornucopia and under the water carrying a hunting knife and a tiny bag. And between her and me, closer by far to me, I saw Medusa running at me with a sword.

_I wish I had something poetic to think_, I thought for my last moments. But I couldn't have come up with anything more sublime than my onetime love and forever friend slipping under the water, her hair shining in the light, one life holding on while mine was guttering out.

* * *

Joy Wincenty- District Twelve male

Camille and I ran toward each other as soon as the Games started. We met between our platforms and looked around for our other allies.

"There!" Camille pointed. I followed her arm and saw Cerise disappearing under the water just off the Cornucopia. Ryx was in that section of platforms as well. Camille and I charted a course skirting around the platorms, picking up supplies as we went.

I bent over and picked up a pair of socks in a plastic bag. As I straightened, a shadow fell across my back. I turned around just as Cyrene, who had jumped off a platform, hit me. Her weight easily knocked me underwater. Her fist closed on my hair and I thrashed in blind panic, expecting her to drown me. Instead, she hauled me up like a fish. I saw Camille behind her, watching in horror and obviously about to try to help. I shook my head at her. There was nothing for her to do but die with me.

Cyrene leaned against the platform to brace herself. She yanked my head back against her breastbone and brought up her other hand. She dragged the blade of a survival knife against my throat so hard it ground against bone. She dropped me back into the water and turned back to the Bloodbath without a second glance.

I clung to the platform as I bled out. I dimly saw Camille's tear-streaked face as she turned and ran after our allies.

I didn't regret it, not really. I'd know I would almost certainly die when I took Jay's place. It was worth it to me. I'd rather die than someone else. I never regretted it, not to the end.

* * *

Tony Gear- District Six male

Arthur and I were running full-tilt toward Siobhan when he took Sagar's javelin in the leg. It could have been far worse, but as it stood, we needed to get out now. It wouldn't do any good if I lost Arthur _and_ Siobhan trying to get to Siobhan. I had to get Arthur out and hope they found their way after us.

Quick as a lick I scooped Arthur up piggyback. I handed him the javelin he'd yanked out before I could tell him not to. He clamped one hand over the wound and held the javelin in the other. I glanced over my shoulder as I ran and was rewarded with the sight of Sagar standing in the Cornucopia with a bemused expression.

* * *

Sagar Dewpont- District Two male

_Well shit._

* * *

Rigel Aspen- District Seven male

I vaulted off the platform and landed hard, bending forward until my hands hit the muddy bottom. As expected, Alsace bolted to the Cornucopia, grabbed a sword and came after me. I had a head start and I was pretty quick, but he had years of hatred powering him. He started to gain on me.

I threw a handful of mud at his face.

Alsace reeled back, pawing at the thick mud covering his eyes and face. I took the time to grab another handful. As soon as he started to close the distance between us, I threw another handful. He roared unintelligibly in rage and slapped the surface of the water as he cleared the mud.

Just as I reached the cattails, I threw another handful of mud. As soon as it hit I dove underwater. I swam as far into the cattails as I could before I surfaced. I couldn't see Alsace anywhere, but I heard his livid bellowing. He was going to be pissed if he ever found me, so I was going to make sure he never did.

* * *

Siobhan Hearse- District Six female

I saw Tony and Arthur running at me and then gasped when Arthur was speared. Tony shot me a glance as he picked Arthur up and started running. I ran after them, away from the sounds of murder and death. As I ran, I scooped up a bag. I didn't look to see what was in it.

I passed between two platforms. I was out of the Bloodbath then. It was just the cattails ahead of me. I'd meet back up with Tony and Arthur and we'd start working on Arthur. Maybe my bag had some medical stuff in it. Cattails are edible, right? So we had water and food. We had a chance.

There was a sudden wrenching pressure on my hair. I cranked my head around and saw Andromeda grabbing it. She jerked her entire body sideways as she yanked me with all her strength at the platform. My head cracked against the metal edge and stars flashed in my vision. I dazedly pushed at Andromeda's arms, but she was far stronger. She braced her elbow against the platform and threw me into it again with both arms. Everything cut to black after an image of my family flashed in my mind.

* * *

**24th place: Angus Pastor- Neck broken by Andromeda**

**There was no reason Angus died first. I just picked the Bloodbaths and the order is largely random. Angus was the one the Careers targeted so he went first. I liked Angus, like most of us, but I needed to kill people so I killed him. Thanks Finnick18 for a last-minute Tribute more popular than a lot of the older ones.**

**23rd place: Harper Newman- Javelin thrown by Sagar**

**Harper was a villain which I usually need, but this time for once I got Careers willing to kill. I didn't need a murderer Tribute so I killed Harper, since she's pretty low-functioning and lacks self-preservation skills. I always have empathy for mentally ill Tributes, no matter how violent, so I felt for Harper and was more gentle than many writers would have been. Thanks llJamesll for one of my more memorable Tributes.**

**22nd place: Aurelia Jackson- Knife thrown by Percy**

**I know it was obvious but at this point me actually killing the cute ones is more shocking than me not. I couldn't keep Arthur, Siobhan and Aurelia, so I picked my pick. Aurelia didn't belong here and never had a proper chance. Here's another thing for Erwin to be heartbroken about. Thanks santiago for continuing his legacy.**

**21st place: Fryderyk Zielinski- Stabbed by Medusa**

**In this Arena you just plain can't have exercise-related breathing problems. Fryderyk was a lover, not a fighter, and would have had little chance in any Games. He had so much in him an SYOT wasn't enough. But he gave me a chance to flex my poetic writing and everyone loved his romantic light. Thanks Pi for half of an unforgettable pair.**

**20th place: Joy Wincenty- Throat cut by Cyrene**

**Same story: I needed someone to die. Joy was a great kid and deserved so much better, but that's the kind of person that dies in the Games. He gave his life for someone. There's no greater love. Thanks Santiago for a wonderful human being.**

**19th place: Siobhan Hearse- Left to drown by Andromeda**

**I finally did it. I keep saying I'll kill the spunky young one and never do. This time, I'm finally going to try it. It's driving me nuts because I love the cute spunky ones, but sometimes you have to challenge yourself. Siobhan was bright and lively and it feels like I just switched off a light in the Arena. I'll see where it takes me. Thanks foxfox12 for a realistic and vibrant young person**.


	28. Ladies First

Katrina Moonshadow- District Seven female

I took a huge breath and jumped into the water. What would make the life-changing difference was how deep it was. When I dropped in, bending my knees, the water closed over my head. I reoriented myself underwater so I was parallel to the Cornucopia and opened my eyes.

With the muddiness of the water almost nothing was visible. What was visible was the reflective glare of light coming through plastic bags. I swam in an arc hugging the platforms, tugging bags underwater one after another. When I felt about halfway through my air, I turned and swam toward the cattails. My lungs were burning before I got there, but I ignored it until I was safely hidden. Only then did I let my head peek just above water. I slunk further into the cattails, head barely visible like an alligator, until the Bloodbath was far behind me.

It was less than a minute later when I came out the other side. The cattail ring ran a circle around the platforms so some of us could get away during the Bloodbath, but it wasn't very thick. I looked out at the Arena stretching before me. The water widened into something between a lake and a river. It wound between clumps of plant matter and what looked like solid land. It was solid land, or at least near it, since I saw two Tributes walking away from me on it. A very few scattered trees stood in the distance among the wetness.

A cannon sounded behind me. I jumped and had to grab back a bag I'd dropped. I kept count of them as they went on, but it wasn't my primary thought. Cannons meant the Bloodbath was over. The Bloodbath being over meant the Careers would be moving.

I waded out farther into the open water. After a few steps it was noticeably deeper. If I went much farther it would be over my head. I knew I had to go forward, and there were only two options: exposed land or open water. I couldn't take a chance on land. I took a few more steps. When my reaching feet no longer touched bottom, I steadied my breath and forced my nerves down.

My stomach felt weightless as I swam with my head under the water. I didn't like not being able to touch bottom. I didn't like not being able to see it. Actually, I couldn't see anything under the water, because when I went under between breaths, I closed my eyes. I knew that the Gamemakers made this place. If I opened my eyes underwater, eventually I would see something looking back at me.

* * *

Andrea D'Amour- District Three female

As soon as I saw what the Arena was, my eyes scanned the Bloodbath for one thing and one thing only. I ran in unhesitatingly to get it. It didn't matter what I had to risk to get it, because if I didn't, I was dead. I grabbed one other thing on the way out and ran for the cattails.

I didn't see anyone when I came out on the other side. Even so, I waded a long time through a faux island of grass floating on a thin crust of dirt before I felt safe enough to stop. The water had gotten shallower enough that I could sit on my butt and have my waist above water. Then I got to work.

In modern Panem, what I was worried about was never a problem. But I'd flipped through my fathers' textbooks plenty of times looking for interesting and gross pictures. And some of the grossest ones that came to mind were the mostly black-and-white pictures of feet exhibiting the signs of trench foot. Constant immersion in water would make the skin of my feet and lower legs dessicate until it sloughed off like wet toilet paper. Left long enough, the flesh could rot away until bone. More likely it would get infected far before that. The water was warmer than it should have been- the Gamemakers wanted to make sure at least we didn't all get hypothermia- but that meant it was seething with microorganisms ready to invade any open wounds.

I opened my second bag and took out a pair of dry socks. I took off my shoes, which were something in the middle between rain boots and combat boots, reaching a third of the way up my calves. I turned them over and shook out all the water I could. I left them upside down while I raised my feet above the water, patted them as dry as I could with my wet socks, and carefully slipped the boots back on. I very carefully stood up. The water didn't reach over my boots, leaving my feet dry. I opened up my first bag and took out a roll of duct tape helpfully labeled 'waterproof'. My pants barely reached to the top of the boots. I wound strips of tape around my boots and my pants, connecting them into a set of waders. I was waterproof in anything up to waist-deep water.

Next up was water. I had plenty of water, of course, but not _potable_ water. Luckily, that was a lot easier than people thought. I filled up my bags with the water around me and twisted a rope out of duct tape. I taped the bags to either end of the rope and slung it over my shoulder. Solar radiation didn't kill all germs, but it killed a lot of them. The rest I'd have to take my chances with. It took at least eight hours to work. I needed to keep walking anyway. I wouldn't feel safe for at least that long.

* * *

Camille Igawa- District Nine female

I waved my arms wildly as I followed behind the two figures with their backs toward me. They were the right relative sizes to be Ryx and Cerise, and I'd seen them both heading that way. The water was open behind me between me and the cattails. If the Careers were there it wouldn't make a difference I was trying to attract attention. And if it wasn't my allies there was no reason to expect violence. We were too close to the Cornucopia to risk a fight.

The shorter figure glanced behind and saw me. He waved and I saw the shout blossom and die in this throat. He lightly shoved the taller figure, who looked back and saw me. When I squinted at them I could recognize my allies. They waved and resumed moving, but slowly enough that I could catch up. We regrouped in a thicket of tall grass that just hid our crouched forms.

"Aurelia's dead," Ryx said. His wide eyes were reflected in the surface of the water.

"Di you see Jay?" Cerise asked.

_Jay was dangling from Cyrene's arms blood flowing like a spilled glass_

"He didn't make it," I said. Cerise put her fist to her mouth and nodded. Ryx looked between us like he might find Jay there

"Did you get anything?" I asked. I thought I'd seen Cerise grabbing something, but my memories of the Bloodbath, other than Jay, were muddled.

"I got a knife," Cerise said. She raised her underwater hand and its blade split the surface and glittered in the light. "Also this first aid kit. It was right there." It was a tiny kit the size of a clutch handbag and it had a lanyard for easier carrying.

"There was nothing near my platform," Ryx said.

"I grabbed this," I said. I reached into my waistband and took out the bag I hadn't even bothered to look inside.

"That's exactly what we need!" Cerise almost yelled before she remembered to hiss it. She was looking at the plastic bag itself "There's iodine in the first aid kit."

"What's in the bag?" Ryx asked.

I opened it and took out the square of thick material. I unfolded it and was surprised to see how many more times it was folded. I kept unfolding and unfolding until I finally realized what it was.

"It's a tarp," I said. A tarp made of brown material so impossibly thin that a piece almost twelve feet square could be folded into a sandwich bag. For a while I just stood there holding it and marveling. In this Arena, in this situation, it was the most staggering work of genius the Capitol had ever devised.

* * *

**No deaths this time! I'm going to take it slow and let it marinate, appropriately.**


	29. And Now the Gents

**LMAO forgot Queenie's eulogy since she's not a gent.**

* * *

Sagar Dewpont- District Two male

"We have to kill the plant."

It was Cyrene who suggested it. With the exception of Alsace, who had charged off on a fool's errand to avenge his dead cousin by murdering someone else's cousin, the Careers were taking stock and organizing supplies. I was sitting on a crate of dehydrated meals about ready to suggest we divvy up watch shifts when she addressed the elephant in the Arena.

"Aw, really? She's kind of pretty," I joked.

Cyrene put her hand to her face. "I know. It's so stupid. But I am not going to get outlived by a plant because some jokester in the Capitol thought it would be funny to send a tornado or something to kill us all so the plant places higher."

"You really think they'd do that?" Andromeda asked.

"They let a plant volunteer for the Hunger Games," Medusa pointed out. Queenie's fate was sealed.

"Who wants to do the honors?" Percy asked.

I stood up and walked into the Cornucopia. "I got it," I said, picking up an axe. _Eh, let me get an extra kill on my list._ When I told my grandkids about how many kills I got in the Games, I just wouldn't specify what it was I killed. I waded through the water, grumbling, and came to the platform where Queenie hadn't moved since the countdown.

"Uh..." I looked over the plant. "Guess there's not really a trunk. It's all grass. Oh well. Alley-oop!" I pushed the pot over the edge of the platform with my foot. Queenie disappeared under the surface. Bubbles floated up intermittinently a moment later in an odd parody of someone drowning.

"Plants drown, right?" I asked as I hauled myself back up.

"Yeah, she'll drown," Percy said. "Might take a while-"

BOOM!

"Guess that was close enough."

* * *

Percy Mordecai- District Four male

Cyrene and I dug through the boxes near the point of the Cornucopia's interior. Outside, the Andromeda and Medusa puttered with the camping stove meant to heat up our dehydrated meals.

"What you looking for?" Sagar asked, bent over in the Cornucopia entrance.

"Waterproofing stuff," I answered.

"Why? Cornucopia's already floating," he asked.

"Yeah, but we're going to have to go out and hunt soon," Cyrene said.

"So?" Sagar asked.

"Know how when sit in a tub for an hour and your skin gets all pruney? Imagine that, but an entire day," I said.

"Oh," Sagar said. "Yeah, obviously. I'm not stupid." I saw the dangerous edge in his eyes and made a note not to say anything to him that could possibly be taken as an insult, though I feared it was too late for that.

"Here's what we want," Cyrene said. She tipped over a crate and half a dozen tall rubbery boots slid out.

"Nice!" I said. We slapped hands.

"We're going to look so stupid," Sagar said. His expression was distasteful as he held up one of the green floppy overshoes. "But what are you gonna do?"

I slid a pair of waders on and adjusted the overall-style straps so they were taut. "Looking like the catch of the day," I said. The other Tributes were out there already getting waterlogged. They had a head start, but it didn't matter. We were invincible now. They could run until their skin peeled off. We could run forever.

* * *

Arthur Harrington- District Nine male

Tony and I peered at the gash in my leg. It really was way better than it could have been. It had already stopped bleeding. I could walk on it- it had just been faster for Tony to scoop me up. What we were worried about was the mud caked into the already-closing scabs. There was filthy water and drying mud smeared all over exposed flesh. That couldn't be good.

"How are we even..." Tony started, and he scratched his head. _How are we even going to bandage this?_ The whole point of a bandage was to keep germs out. _That_ ship had sailed. The other point was to keep a wound dry so it could heal. We didn't have anything dry. All our clothes were soaked.

"Okay, let's just keep it above the water for now," Tony said. The water at our location was only about two inches of actual water over a cushion of mud. Grass hid me, since I was lying down, but it wasn't tall enough to hide Tony, who was standing. He sat down and started tugging at the hem of his shirt. We didn't have a knife, so it took awhile, but eventually he wore through the material and tore off a strip.

"It'll dry eventually," he said, draping it over his knee so it was out of the water. Once it dried we would have a filthy bandage to keep my wound clean. Well, gotta take what you can get.

After a moment Tony sat up. "You think we should keep moving? Sagar probably wants this back." He held up the javelin.

"There were lots more in the Cornucopia. They're hunting and all, but not specifically for us," I said.

"Cool, free javelin," Tony said. "Maybe we can spear some fish."

"What about water? Guess we'll just have to take our chances," I said, looking at the murky water all around us.

"Maybe someone will sponsor us. All we need is an empty bottle. Maybe Nine and Six together can afford that," Tony said. He looked hopefully at the sky. "It just takes a while to get the money together. It'll definitely come," he said. I was happy for him. I was glad he had a life that left him optimistic.

* * *

**Still no deaths. The tension builds...**

**18th place: Queenie Hesperaloe- not really dead tbh**

**It takes like a week for a plant to drown if submerged. For the sake of brevity the Gamemakers shot the cannon. Meanwhile Queenie's seeds are drifting around in the water. Some of them later landed in the mud and germinated. From Queenie's perspective she didn't die, she just moved. Queenie is a new record for the weirdest Tribute I've gotten. I have a reputation for taking anything and I intend to continue, which hopefully will not get me deluged with 24 weird Tributes next time. I realized I was playing with fire adding so much suspension of disbelief, but it's the Hunger Games and it's a fan fiction. We're here to have fun, not write an essay. I did try to write a Tribute plant as realistically as possible in some little ways. Thanks Platrium for the single most bizarre Tribute I've ever gotten and quite possibly the most bizarre in SYOT history for any writer.**


	30. Where are the Careers?

AURELIA JACKSON- Ryx Marker

Aurelia was dead. People our age didn't last long. That didn't bode well for me.

* * *

SIOBHAN HEARSE- Tony Gear

They were right there. I almost had them. I could have gotten both my allies if I'd just stayed a little longer. They weren't even coming after me and Arthur. We weren't even on their minds. I could have saved Siobhan.

* * *

Fryderyk Zielinski- Cerise Dupin

_Goodbye, my first love._

* * *

ANGUS PASTOR- Pik Reynolds

I would have thought I'd be the one to die in the Bloodbath. I was the one with the horrible luck. All things considered, Angus had had a good life until he got Reaped. Maybe my fortune would go up as much as his went down.

* * *

QUEENIE HESPERALOE- Andromeda Dior

There's a plant projected on the sky. This is life in Panem.

* * *

JOY WINCENTY- Camille Igawa

They didn't have to put his face up there. It never left my mind.

* * *

HARPER NEWMAN- Raina Ray

Good riddance and I didn't miss her. Harper had been this year's boogeyman and no one was sad she wasn't around to terrorize us. I did feel for her a little, though. I knew what it was like to fight your own brain.

* * *

Calvary Warsaw- District Ten mentor

Another year, another Bloodbath. Nothing I wasn't used to. I would never tell anyone, but after the first few years, you start to not think of them as people until a few days in. Like in those countries forever ago where they didn't name their kids until their first birthday, in case they died. And of course Queenie actually wasn't a person so that was nice.

* * *

District Ten

Dirty Dan never gave Sheriff Six-Shooter any trouble ever again. He hung up his pistol and retired. Natalie Salisbury spent a few weeks dodging angry relatives in the streets and after the first half-dozen rocks and bricks she nailed a blanket over her window and waited it out. But life went on and in the end they remembered who the real enemy was.

Nubu Sanders- District Twelve mentor

It was perverse how I valued the anxiety. Once I wasn't scared for my Tributes anymore, that meant they were dead. I wasn't scared for them anymore and I wished I still was.

* * *

District Twelve

The actual Joy Wincenty was never the same after Jay's death. He grew quieter, and more withdrawn, and older in mind as well as body. He was left with the ever-present compulsion to live up to the gift his brother gave along with an unavoidable feeling that he never could. Harper's uncle Kenner counseled her mother through her grief and continued to work toward understanding and a cure for those living in fractured realities.

* * *

Rachel Larson- District Six female

The sun was setting and I was still walking. The one time I actually wanted the weird switch thing and it didn't happen. When the Games started, I didn't charge in coolly and fearlessly, grabbing the things I needed and fighting anyone who got in my way. I jumped into the water in a graceless half-bellyflop and thrash-swam to the cover of the cattails. I'd been walking ever since.

I was shivering. I didn't notice it until it was pretty, well, noticeable. I looked up and saw the sliver of reddish light left as the sun rapidly disappeared. Immediately the air changed. It was like I could feel the heat seeping away. If felt like if I squinted at the air I could see it. Before I knew it my arms were crossed tight to my chest and I was vibrating.

_Oh no._

All day long the water and air had been tolerably warm. I hadn't thought anything of it. I hadn't thought about what happens to the temperature after the sun sets. I hadn't thought of what happens to humans when we get wet. We get cold.

Back forever ago, I read this random book for some reason, I didn't even remember why. It was about this stupid idiot prospector who hiked out to the middle of nowhere way up north to find gold. This old guy said 'hey don't go out there it's cold you'll die' and he said 'shut up old man I'm young and smart'. And what happened? He got too cold and _died_! That was the whole book, just him getting colder and colder and then he died, the end. And he might have lived at first. He was doing okay, but then he fell into a river and got wet, and then everything went downhill.

In the book the guy said there were two ways to live: keep moving or build a fire. Well, it was going to be kind of hard to build a fire out of water and wet grass. That left walking. No matter how cold I got, I could not stop walking. And I was already wet, but it was probably better to not be submerged to my armpits in water. Even though it meant exposing myself to the Careers, I had to get to higher ground. I looked around in the dimming light and found an area with what looked like solid ground and some non-aquatic plants growing. It turned out to be calf-deep water, which was a big improvement. I slogged my way up, tucked my hands under my shirt against my stomach, snuggled my lower face into my collar, and walked.

* * *

Cerise Dupin- District Eight female

Camille's tarp saved all of our lives.

We were huddled together like a just-born litter of puppies, enveloped on all sides by the tarp we'd lain on and folded over ourselves. The Careers had night-vision glasses, but in their green tint it would still be impossible to see a mud-covered tarp half-buried in more mud. We just looked like a bump in the ground. Camille and I were tangled up in each other like a pair of lovers. Ryx had abandoned his individualistic pride and was draped across us like a blanket. It was almost sort of not cold.

Maybe I slept a little, but I didn't think so. All night long I had one thought in my head. We were hidden, maybe, but we were entirely in the open. If the Careers found us, none of had had a chance. They'd spear us where we lay. I couldn't hear them. That was the worst part. All night long, I never heard a sound. I wouldn't hear them, I realized, until they were on me, like a hunting panther. Any second of that entire night could be the second the sword sliced through the tarp and into me.

_Where are they? I just want to know. Where are they?_

* * *

Pik Reynolds- District Eleven male

I couldn't take it anymore. I crawled out onto a more-or-less solid piece of land. I was still freezing, but I wasn't submerged in cold water anymore. I tore out handfuls of tall grass and lay them on the mud so I had something dry to lie on. I nested down in it and tried to cover myself with more, but I wasn't fooling anyone. If the Careers came by they would kill me. I was too cold to do anything but let it happen.

All night long I lay there in the open, waiting to hear them come. But I never did. Where were they?

* * *

Raina Ray- District Five

I lay shivering halfway on my side in a forest of grass that just hid my head. I hadn't thought it would get this cold. I wished I wasn't wet, but I was too afraid to climb up onto higher ground. I curled my legs to my chest and huddled against the mud underneath the grass, clinging to it.

My body moved on its own. I was trembling all over so violently it almost hurt. My shoulders lurched with sobs, but nothing came out. I couldn't feel my fingers. I could barely see them in the dark, but from what I could see, they were bone-white claws.

My mind felt lighter. I felt the thoughts fading. I knew I was dying and I knew it was too late. I knew I should try to find somewhere dry, but I couldn't make myself want to. I felt the cold heaviness seeping into my legs and anchoring me. I tried to look for the Careers and couldn't raise my head. I let it rest. My cheek sank into the mud.

"My name was Raina," I whispered around the silty water that flowed into my mouth. "District Five female." I lay there until I fell asleep.

Andromeda Dior- District One female

Sagar dangled his legs over the edge of the platform and dipped his hand into the water.

"Yikes," he said, yanking it back out. "That's cold!"

"You can guard the supplies instead if you want," I offered. I wonder how cold it is. I dipped my hand in the water. Eww.

"Cold, right?" Sagar said.

Cyrene came over with an officious expression on her face. We all braced ourselves to be accused of being babies.

She withdrew her hand from the water. "Dang, that's cold."

"What if we inventoried supplies and talked strategy tonight and went out in the morning?" Sagar suggested.

"Yeah, let's do that," Percy said.

* * *

**17th place: Raina Ray- hypothermia**

**I was going to kill Raina in the Bloodbath just because she wasn't particularly skilled, but from the form I could tell she was somewhat autobiographical and if people make themselves I try to at least let them see the Arena a little. Raina dealt with a lot of identity stuff and it's nice she got to be what she wanted, even though it probably wasn't worth dying at her age. She was a loner and not that large, so she was a logical pick for freezing to death. I forgot to write down her submitter, but thanks for a girl who finally found herself.**

**BTW I headcanon that gender identity is a non-issue in Panem. Why? Because gender norms are completely, absolutely, 100% made-up. Nothing is inherently "masculine" or "feminine". The only reason whatsoever they exist is because of fickle, quickly-changing societal brainwashing. We're already making moves toward seeing that and letting go of bizarre superstitions like "this wavelength of light is for BOYS and this wavelength is for GIRLS!" Panem is far in the future. I think by then we'll have let go of gender norms as the baseless garbage they are. There will be no need to categorize yourself as a gender because they will not be in any way different. We won't think "girls prefer dolls and boys prefer trucks" or "women value relationships, men value achievement". The concept of "cross"-dressing will be as quaintly backwards as phrenology. **


	31. Ch-Ch-Ch-Chia

Medusa Gorgona- District Two female

There was something disconcerting and unnatural about waking up after spending a night sleeping on the ground. Instead of the satisfaction and renewal of energy I usually got when I sat up in bed in the morning, I felt like I needed to go right back to sleep. My back and shoulders ached from spending hours pressed against the hard ground. Even with the sleeping bags it still felt like I was sleeping on lightly cushioned stone. The sleeping bag material was damp and clingy with the wetness of the air and the sweat from spending the night in it. I peeled it off and sat up.

I didn't have to look at my reflection in the water to know. I could _feel_ it. The dampness in the air, the sticky heat, how I hadn't done anything to prepare for it... my hair was free. That sounded sounded vain and it was, but ten years of ridicule left a mark, even on a Career. A long time ago, before I started straightening it, I used to think my hair was pretty. It looked just like my mother's.

Beside me, Andromeda sat up and stretched her arms. Percy and Sagar were already up standing guard. It had been a pretty quiet night aside from when Alsace finally straggled in to regroup and get some food. He was still sleeping.

Andromeda turned her head as she yawned. She got a look at me and her eyes went wide. Her mouth opened and I felt my face draw in anticipation.

_Look at the chia pet!_

_Medusa stuck her finger in a light socket again._

_This is why people die when they look at her._

"That's so cool!" Andromeda said, her face splitting into a huge grin. "I wish my hair did that!"

"Do _not_," I said. "It takes forever to get un-poofy."

"So just leave it like that. You're like a lion," Andromeda said. Which was a lot better than 'chia pet'.

There was something about Andromeda's open admiration that made me want to pay it back. I hadn't had friends in a long time, but it wasn't because I didn't want them. It was just that back home no one reacted to me like she had.

"All the girls I knew wanted straight hair like yours," I said.

"Booooring. Anyone can straighten their hair. Mine will never look like that," Andromeda said about my humidity Afro.

"I got it from my mom," I admitted proudly. I felt the tightness beside my eyes and realized I was smiling a real smile, the first in a long time. It felt good to smile again.

* * *

Rigel Aspen- District Seven male

I could never stop moving. Even among all the Tributes in the Arena, I was the one that would never not be hunted. Alsace was out there somewhere. The only way I would survive was if he simply never found me. And so I kept moving.

It really wasn't fair. Any other year I would have had a chance. A big chance, honestly. I was a big, strong guy. A lot of the others were pretty young or pretty gentle this year. Nothing was certain and I didn't want to overestimate myself, but the odds were in my favor. A lot of people probably had bets on me right now. Of the outliers, I was almost certainly the favorite. And none of that mattered at all, because like the Baskervilles, I had a hound that haunted no one but me. I was the victim of an entirely senseless vendetta that had nothing to do with me.

I remembered the day Lyon died. I was eleven years old, watching on a screen with all the other kids in the town square. Everyone was supposed to watch whenever they could, but that day all the shops and businesses had been shut down, since they knew the finale was coming. Just three years after Hades, it looked like we could win again. I wondered if Alsace had any idea what it felt like. Every year One thought they would win. Every year One _could _win. Hope was something they had every day. They didn't know how precious it was to us. I remembered cheering and not believing it and just everyone going wild when Loki _won, _when one of us actually _lived. _I had no idea that all the way across the nation there was another boy just like me. My world had just been opened up and his had just ended. I wouldn't have cheered if I'd known.

Eventually I would reach the force field. When I did, I supposed I would start circumnavigating the Arena. Or I could find a hole in the mud somewhere and curl up and hide. If I never moved it would be nearly impossible for Alsace to find me. But the Gamemakers will have their blood. They would flush me out somehow when he got near.

That was the crux of it, really. I _couldn't_ run forever. This was the sort of thing the Gamemakers lived for. They would force the reckoning on me no matter how hard I tried to escape. I could evade Alsace. I couldn't evade the Capitol.

I walked a little farther, until a strand of sparsely-vegetated trees came into view. I didn't bother trying to hide as I walked toward them. When I reached them, I snapped off a solid-looking branch as thick as two of my fingers. I rooted around in the mud, silt wedging under my fingernails, until I found a stone. I sat at the roots of the tree and started to scrape.

* * *

Pik Reynolds- District Eleven male

I'd survived the night. Not all of us had. If my memory of the Bloodbath was right, it was Raina who didn't outrun the cold. It was coming again tonight. Everything it took to survive that first night, it would happen again and again, as many nights as it took.

But that wouldn't matter if I didn't even make it to sunset. All I'd grabbed at the Cornucopia was a bottle of water in a plastic bag. It was that plastic bag that could save my life. I put the empty bottle to my mouth and nipped through the plastic bottom with my fangs. I kept nipping and tugging until I'd removed the entire bottom, tucking the disc into my pocket in case it came in handy later. I put a handful of the siltiest mud I could find in the topless bottle. On top of that I put a layer of some sandy sediment I found at the base of a clump of brass. On top of that I put a later of rocks. I carefully dipped the bottle underwater vertically to fill the rest with water. I held it over the plastic bag and waited.

The broadcasts never prepared us for how very much of the Games was spent doing nothing. I sat there holding the bottle over the bag until my arm ached and I had to wedge it into the mud so I wouldn't lose my grip. I sat there stewing in the water like moldering garbage, submerged up to my chin, mud squelching into my hair from where I leaned my head against semisolid ground, feet anchored in the soft mud under me. The water was calm, but before long I became aware of the subtle movements as something like tides shifted in and out. I had to fight an increasing urge to stand up and just _be dry_, to just _not be wet_. I felt the water billowing under my shirt and through my pants legs.

Once, the surface was disturbed. A tiny ring appeared in the surface and spread out as it dispersed in the water. I froze, almost dropping my bottle.

_It's just air bubbles_, I told myself. Maybe it was. Maybe it was a sea monster the size of a school bus. I had no way to know. I had no way in hell of knowing if I would die for staying still or if I would die for moving.

A frog broke the surface and pulled itself up onto a clump of grass. No swamp monster. Not this time. For a moment I was glad to have something like a friend. Then it crossed my mind that in less than a day I would be ready to eat it raw.

It was something most humans never thought about, how close we always were to dying. We were a series of timers constantly resetting. Three weeks until you starve to death, resetting every time you ate. Three days without water, resetting with every cup. Three minutes without air, resetting every time you take a breath. I was never more than three minutes from death, not from the moment I was born. The only time that timer ever changed was once, when it got shorter.

I looked back at my filter. The sun had traveled halfway across the sky. I had a third of a bag of water.

* * *

**Well what do ya know, no deaths. I just thought I'd really let this one develop- try something new, you know? See where the characters end up.**


	32. Apex

Ryx Marker- District Three male

Camille and I knotted together strips of bandage from one of the rolls in our first aid kit. One was set aside for actual first aid and one was for rope-making. So far we had a net that reached across both our laps.

"That might be enough," Camille said. "Let's try it."

We waded into knee-deep water and held the net vertically underwater. We dragged it along the bottom, pushing against the mud that got clogged in it. We waded back into ankle-deep water and raised it.

"Look!" Camille pointed at the one wriggling spot in the pile of mud. "A crawfish!"

"A crayfish, actually," I said. _A member of the crustacean family._

"Excuuuuse me, I didn't know this was grammar class," Camille said as she dug her fingers into the mud and carefully picked out the crayfish.

_Taxonomy class, really_, I thought, but this time at least I didn't say it. We gave the crayfish to Cerise, who deposited it into an empty cubby in our first aid kit and went back to fashioning fishing kits out of some of our medical thread and one of our needles.

_A few more passes and we'll be able to eat_! It was amazing how much life dwindled in a survival situation. There was no thinking about self-esteem or future plans or all the things that made us human. It was just the physical needs of our animal bodies. And I was helping fulfill those needs. I was an important part of our alliance and my allies would like me.

Camille and I bent our heads over the net and squinted into the water, even though it was too murky to see the crayfish. There was a sudden, audible blast of air like a pressure valve had been released. The atavistic part of my brain screamed at me to get out, but the curiosity ingrained in the human condition caused me, along with Camille, to turn my head. And so I saw the eyes, a foot apart, halfway visible above the water's surface, before the water roiled and spray shot all over me.

* * *

Camille Igawa- District Nine female

I saw it all clearly. I saw it when the alligator shot past Ryx, ignoring him entirely, and came for me. I lurched backwards and fell on my butt in the knee-deep water. The alligator's momentum carried him on top of me so his stomach pinned me as his jaws closed on my arm and shoulder. It was like the time I'd gotten my finger slammed in a car door, except ten times the pressure and damage all across my arm.

I saw then what it all meant and what I really was. I'd come in convinced I was going to tell them what our lives were like and show them what had to be changed. I'd thought I was a revolutionary. I had never been anything to them, nothing but a buzzing in their ears. They didn't listen during my speech. None of them would make a single change in their lives. And the alligator came not because Ryx and I were Tributes, but to make me shut up.

The alligator's top and bottom teeth met in my flesh. I felt them clack together, squeezing my muscles and bones apart to make room. I heard Ryx screaming and the pressure on my back as what felt like two sets of hands tried to pull me away from the alligator. Ryx reached further down my body to get a better grip. The alligator rolled.

So much of me was missing. I was a torn fraction of a human body. There was an understated, elegaic pain, my body telling my brain it was too late, we were lost. I was, fittingly, exactly what the Capitol saw me as: not fully a person. I wasn't going to lead a revolution. There were people out there who could. Maybe Cerise. Maybe someone none of us had even heard of yet. It would come. But not from me.

* * *

Cerise Dupin- District Eight female

Ryx and I braced our feet in the shifting mud and tried to haul Camille free of the alligator with our arms around her waist. All three of us easily slid deeper into the water as the alligator hauled us effortlessly. Blood welled and spurted and ran like a river from Camille's shoulder. She wasn't screaming. She stared glassy-eyed at the sky, gasping like a fish. Ryx reached farther in to get better leverage. The alligator adjusted its grip, hiking its jaws and closing them again, trapping Ryx's arm along with Camille.

It rolled, corkscrewing in the water like a writhing snake. I was looking at Camille when it happened. Her body peeled off in a strip. Tatters of viscera clung to her denuded arm. I thought of a chicken wing slid from someone's mouth after they'd picked it clean of meat.

The alligator slid under the water until nothing was visible but Camille's fanning hair. I hadn't even realized I'd let go of her. Ryx's screaming brought me back to the present triage. I grabbed the back of his shirt and hauled him to solid ground.

His hand was nearly gone. The bones were still intact, but the skin was ripped so deeply the hand hung on the arm like a crookedly perched glove. We left a muddy stream of blood as I threw him ashore.

I frantically threw open the first aid kit. I found the strip of fabric that looked like a watch strap with a plastic stick attached. I turned back to Ryx. He was already bone-white and trembling. I knelt on his arm, all my weight on my leg, ignoring his renewed screams. I slid the tourniquet overthe bloody ruin of his hand and started to twist.

I couldn't tell if the blood was slowing. There was too much of it already out. I kept turning and turning the stick, tightening the strap until his skin puckered and turned an ugly shade of purple. Ryx whimpered and tried to claw it off with his free hand. I pinned his arms with my legs and knelt on top of him. He kept whimpering, little mewling sounds, but it was the best thing I could have heard. They weren't growing weaker. He wasn't bleeding out. As long as he kept crying, he kept living.

* * *

**16th place: Camille Igawa- Eaten by alligator**

**Camille and Cerise were the two rebels. It came time to kill one and I had to pick. I liked them both, but I ended up picking Camille because her rebellion was more overt and also because she's very skinny and Cerise is better equipped to survive this Arena. Camille's form noted the Gamemakers would probably send something, so here it is: a big giant alligator (Ryx would be the first to note that it IS an alligator, not a crocodile, since it has a round snout). Camille was a self-aware poor little rich girl. She had bigger dreams for herself that didn't come true, but she still dared to dream them. We the audience know change WILL come to Panem eventually. Not from Camille, but from others who made the same attempt successfully. Thanks LordShiro for a Tribute who learned a bitter lesson to pave the way for those who came after.**

**For those worried that Cerise's first aid kit is like Mary Poppins' bag and just always has what they need, it's a military IFAK and has the items an IFAK contains. Fun fact I got to practice doing a tourniquet with an IFAK. It motherfreakin HURTS when your partner kneels on you to stop the blood.**


	33. Mudslinging

RAINA RAY- Arthur Harrington

Another one of the small ones. We never won the Games. We were dying out one by one. Eventually I would be the last to go, if I got that far.

* * *

CAMILLE IGAWA- Cerise Dupin

_What is there for her family to bury? She's digested. There is no body._

* * *

Meenah Turbine- District Five mentor

I didn't expect anything different. I pulled out all the tricks and sweet-talked so many Capitolites, but it took time to convince people. If Raina had made it through the night I could have sent her something before it got cold again. People are slower to make decisions when it's not their lives on the line.

* * *

District Five

Mrs. Ray had sensed for years the growing distance between her and her child. She never had the slightest idea what the reason had been all along. All the years of "man up", "I need my big strong son", "you're the man of the house" came back and echoed in her head, smashing her with each reverberation. She'd lost her child, and Raina's expression was nothing but a chance never seen until too late.

There was a train etched on Siobhan's grave. It never moved, just like what it guarded.

* * *

Cyrene Longuemare- District Four female

I disliked mud. I'd never been the kind of child who delighted in getting dirty and making mud pies. I didn't like it under my nails and I hated the dirty stickiness that remained until you washed it off. But mud was the practical choice here, and personal comfort was something I could enjoy after I'd won. So I stretched myself out in the mud at the edge of a loose platform of greenery and wallowed like a pig. I didn't rise until I'd smeared every inch of myself with mud, from my hairline to the folds of my ears.

Andromeda and Medusa had gone of in similar directions once the run rose and the water was bearable. Sagar lit off in the opposite direction, since he was dramatic. It had been one of the crowning achievements of my leadership of the Careers to convince Alsace to stay. We were an alliance. We would stay that way until the absolute end, no matter what it took. I would hold us together with nothing but duct tape and determination if I had to. We were a team and we pulled equal weight. Alsace had to stand guard just like the rest of us, vendetta or no vendetta. In the end, he'd agreed. He wasn't unreasonable, he just had blind spots like everyone else.

That goal, then, was taken care of. The next pressing thing was to constantly reiterate that I was loyal and devoted to the Capitol. If I wanted to ensure they didn't send a mutt to tie up my loose end, I needed to carry out their ends. I needed to be their agent in the Arena so they let me do their killing instead of them killing me.

I wasn't rebellious. I really wasn't. I had rebellious members in my family, but I didn't share their opinions. I was the barrel that got spoiled by the bad apple. I wasn't brave enough to be a rebel. Careers aren't brave. We all come into this thinking we'll win it. It wasn't brave to fight someone you're sure you can beat. With the Capitol, it wasn't a matter of being sure. I _knew_ I couldn't beat them. I wanted money and power and influence like anyone else, but I wanted it from the system, not from overthrowing it.

That said, there was someone rebellious in the Arena. I'd heard about Cerise. She wasn't showy about it, but we all knew she didn't care for the system. She stuck out and that got you killed in Panem. Whether or not she was really going to do anything, the Capitol thought she was, and perception is reality. If I got rid of their problem Tribute for them, they would back off of me. I hardly knew anything about Cerise and certainly had nothing against her. But this wasn't about anything personal. It was just business.

* * *

Alsace Cartier- District One male

_This sucks._

It wasn't even the 'not hunting Rigel' part. I'd find him eventually and didn't need to spend every waking minute stalking him like Inspector Javert. Careers just didn't do well sitting around guarding supplies. It was one of the things we all skipped over when daydreaming about our days in the Hunger Games.

Percy sat across the platform from me, lightly kicking his feet in the water. It was Cyrene's idea to have two people standing guard. It wasn't insulting, just pragmatic. Our glaring, crippling weakness was our dependence on outside supplies. If someone got our food, that was it. Game over. It was a one in a thousand chance that some outlier would be brave enough to try and strong or lucky enough to succeed, but Cyrene didn't take chances. The food and supplies we were guarding were more valuable than any of us.

"So why'd you choose the Career life?" I asked, not in a 'why would someone like you do it' but a 'what's your particular reason' way.

"I actually didn't, to be honest," Percy said. "My boyfriend got Reaped. He screamed at me to volunteer and save him."

"What? Sorry, but what a _dick_!" I said.

"It's what you do for someone you love," Percy said.

"Yeah, what _you_ do for _them_. Not what you ask_ them_ to do for_ you_!" I said.

"He wasn't trying to throw me under the bus or anything," Percy said. "He just thought I had a better chance. He was really insecure. He always thought I was going to leave him anytime I wanted to go hang out with friends or stuff."

"So what were the good parts about this guy?" I asked.

"He's really affectionate. He's always telling me how much he loves me and can't live without me. And he puts up with me when I lose my temper. No one else would do that."

"Did he tell you that?" I asked. Percy started to say no, then looked away.

"Whatever. Let's talk about something else," he said.

"Sure," I said. "We're stuck here all day anyway. You wanna play some twenty questions?"

"Sure."

"Okay, I got one."

"Is it alive?"

"Yeah."

"Is it bigger than a person?"

* * *

**I actually do have some deaths planned. I just had these two POVs next in my list of Tributes who needed POVs. Since Alsace is usually out alone, if he was going to interact with Percy it had to happen now. But soon there will actually be deaths.**


	34. Maybe This Time?

**I put Siobhan instead of Aurelia in the Five obits. Oops! 5 and 6 look similar so I have a hard time. I'll put Aurelia with Tony if he dies.**

* * *

Andromeda Dior- District One female

Geysers of mud and water rose in a trail as Pik ran in front of me. He had the advantage in stride and height. He also had a hard-earned store of endurance, won from a lifetime of hard labor instead of years training at the Academy. It was why I'd been trailing him by as much as I did. That and the old fable about the hare and the hound.

The only problem with my chosen weapons was how close I had to get to use them. Against another Career, fighting face-to-face, I could give as good as I got. Against a fleeing outlier, I had to work for it. But that was where I shone. Another Career might have given up by now- broken off to find easier prey. But no matter how my legs ached, or my side hitched, or my throat burned, I was set. Whatever it took, I would catch him.

I darted off to one side, herding Pik into deeper water, where we would both be slowed and I could catch my breath as I closed in. He overbalanced and half-fell, catching himself as the water slowed his fall. We left two wakes behind us as we ran through the increasingly deep water. It became more of a swim once it got to waist-deep. Clouds of silt darkened the water around Pik like a breadcrumb trail giving him away.

Swimming wasn't my strong suit, but to my relief, it wasn't Pik's either. I'd grown up a city slicker and he'd grown up among waves of crops instead of water. The distance between us stayed the same as we both clumsily dog-paddled. I was aware of how comical we must have looked from an overhead view. The joke would be over when I caught him.

Pik lit out for a patch of solid ground. Clearly he planned to start running and capitalize on the distance he could get while I was still getting out of the water. It would mean a lot more work for me if he pulled it off. He surged onto the ground like a lungfish and started to run.

* * *

Pik Reynolds- District Eleven male

I was not a fighter. I was a runner. As soon as I saw Andromeda, I booked it. Zigzagging, darting and weaving, running, swimming, whatever it took. I was panting with how long I'd been running and my legs tingled. I was getting that slack feeling I got after a ten-hour shift in the fields.

When I saw solid land almost in front of me, I changed course, shivering at how Andromeda gained on me. I made it to the land and practically vaulted out of the water. My feet slid down into almost-solid mud and I pushed off into a run.

Two steps later, I looked behind. Andromeda was still swimming. I had maybe ten seconds' head start before she reached land. In the corner of my eye, I saw the mud under me roil. A mud-covered arm snaked up and grabbed my ankle. Medusa's torso rose into view as she yanked my leg, pitching me face-first into the mud.

_I'm caught I'm caught I'm caught!_

Every thought fled. Like a pinned rabbit tearing at the trap until it stops its own heart, I tried and failed to rise twice. Medusa grabbed my collar and pulled herself up through the mud underneath me. I kicked and felt her yelp, but it only slowed her for a second. Her arm moved like a piston as she stabbed me over and over with a dagger, pushing up until I was lifted off her by the force of the blow. Andromeda waded in to the edge of the land and stopped to rest, hands on her knees, head down as she panted. I caught the look she flashed at Medusa and knew I hadn't been herded into deep water at all. I'd been herded here.

* * *

Medusa Gorgona- District Two female

"Nice," Andromeda said when she'd caught her breath.

"Next time _you_ get buried in mud," I said. It sounded odd when it came out. I poked my tongue around in my mouth, feeling at the blood from where Pik kicked me, and it slid across a freshly jagged tooth that sent a flash of pain through my jaw. My whole face still throbbed from the impact.

"You sound funny," Andromeda said.

"You gotta be kidding. He broke my tooth!" I said. I pushed my lip up and pointed out my newly serrated lateral incisor.

"Ooooh," Andromeda said, cringing sympathetically. "That's pretty metal, though."

* * *

**15th place: Pik Reynolds- Stabbed by Medusa**

**The Careers are finally starting to hedge their bets and play this for the long haul. Pik went into this doing what most of us would have done: running like a dog. And it got to 15th place, which he wouldn't have gotten if he'd fought. But you can only run so far, especially when two Careers post themselves on either side of you. This Arena is _not _kind to runners. Pik would have hidden and did as long as he could, but once Andromeda and Medusa saw him (before he saw them) it was game over. Thanks Lupin for an unabashedly realistic-about-his-odds and baldly pragmatic Tribute.**

**Short chapter since it was three POVs of one scene and adding something else would be awkward.**


	35. Bog of Eternal Stench

Andrea D'Amour- District Three female

One of the branches on the trees I sat underneath had been broken. Not broken like it just kind of fell off. Another person had broken it. I could see where they'd torqued it back and forth and left little fringes on the end. Whoever it was, they were long gone. I wondered who it was that had passed by before. Was it one of the dead ones and this was their last trace? If they were still alive, why had they gone? Where were they now? They would never know about me. We passed like strangers in the night.

There was another branch in my hands. I was scraping it against the rough bark of the tree. Little threads of wood split off as it slowly grew sharper. It wouldn't be sharp enough to kill a person. It wasn't strong enough, either- if I stabbed someone with it, it would snap. But I wasn't aiming to kill a person.

The sun was dipping nearer the horizon. It was almost dusk. Dusk, the time when lower light brought cover but before night turned the water cold. Then my targets would come out.

I could already hear them. Little percussive sounds like wooden balls bouncing off tight guitar strings. And some more organic noises, everything from drones to chirps. I took up my spear and started to hunt.

It was anticlimactic. There were so many bullfrogs that I found one in less than a minute. It sat there, its eyes glowing wetly in the dim light. I was mostly hidden under the water. When I popped up and stabbed it, there was nowhere for it to go. My spear wasn't strong enough to pierce it. It was the pressure of my arm pushing down on the spear that more or less squished the frog and crushed the spear into it.

The frog wasn't dead, just mutilated. I felt bad seeing it scream and wriggle around the spear. I yanked the spear out and jammed it as hard as I could against its head. I shuddered as its skull crumpled in my hand, the spear shoving through until it poked me in the palm. The frog stopped its struggles and just kicked spastically in death.

_How do I eat it?_ It was the size of an apple. I knew frog legs were fancy people food, but I didn't have any means to prepare it. I had a still-twitching, warm, entire frog in my hands. I hadn't eaten in three days. It made me sick what I was about to do, but there was nothing in my stomach to vomit.

I bit the frog's clammy leg. Foul-tasting slime and mud coated my tongue as my jaws clenched down. My teeth penetrated skin, then raw flesh, and then the bones cracked in my mouth. I chewed the white, chunky, moist mouthful, swallowed, and bit again.

* * *

Katrina Moonshadow- District Seven female

A long time ago, before Panem was a country, there was a war. I didn't know much about what things were like before Panem, but I knew there was a war fought far away in a jungle. There were booby traps and people hiding in the mud and everyone was wet all the time. It felt a little like that when I slipped to the edge of a vegetation pad under ankle-deep water and started smearing myself in mud. It felt dehumanizing. I was camouflaging myself like an animal, like something only valued based on how well it could hide. I was a primal thing slicked with mud to hide from the predators that I, a human, was no longer insulated from.

The water was cool as it slid around me. I had everything I needed to survive. I had five bags of survival supplies. They weren't big bags, but that was still a lot, relatively speaking. One of them had a bottle of iodine. Another had little protein gels that were super concentrated. I didn't have to worry about starving or dehydrating. All I had to worry about was other Tributes. So I kept moving. I wanted to get to the very outskirts of the Arena. A lot of Tributes were probably too scared to move. Let me be alone on the fringes, away from my biggest predator.

The water was clearer near the edge of the Arena- or at least I thought I was near the edge. I still wouldn't drink it, but I could faintly see a few feet down into the chin-deep water, which was nice. Billows of silt and shifting waves flashed in the corner of my eyes as I slowly moved.

Something reflected in the water. That was nothing to be afraid of- sunlight glinted off it all the time. The water stirred, as though I'd caused a tiny current by walking. I looked down at the gently moving section. It had scales.

I was standing a foot away from a snake that was two feet wide. It was sliding through the water beside me like a ghost. Both ends disappeared into the murkiness without evidence of a head or tail. Just a middle, going past me, on and on and on.

I was weighed to the mud around my feet. I had a motionless sense of being entirely helpless, like a mouse already in a hawk's claws. I was a prey animal with nothing to do but die. Morals, dreams, higher thought, it was all gone. I was a being of flesh that other beings consumed. I stood still in the water, only my mouth up breaking the surface, my hair fanning around me. This was the middle of the snake. At some point I had reached its end and started to pass _without even realizing it._

The snake continued to glide past, giving no indication that it realized me. It hadn't, I finally understood. I was caked in mud head-to-toe. Snakes sensed heat. I was nothing to it. Just like me a few minutes ago, it had no idea I was there.

My breath sent ripples across the surface of the water with each breath. My eyes were riveted on the swaying movement of the snake. I couldn't move a muscle, even though I knew rationally it wasn't movement that would attract the snake. Its length arced toward me as it moved. It brushed my leg, a textured, gentle stroke. I clenched my legs as I felt myself about to release a cloud of warmth I was terrified would alert it.

At least fifteen feet of snake had gone by. I didn't know how much more was at the head end. All at once, the scaled length grew thinner. It tapered off until I finally saw the tip of a tail slip by. Not ten feet after it passed me, it was invisible. It left me still frozen, crying quietly into the water. Ten feet. At any time in the water, I was ten feet away.

* * *

Tony Gear- District Six male

This couldn't last. It had been four days in the Arena, and we looked rough. We'd done everything we could for Arthur's leg, but we were wallowing in mud and constantly damp. All things considered it looked pretty good, but pretty good was pretty bad.

"How you feeling?" I asked Arthur.

"It doesn't hurt that bad," he shrugged. He shifted his weight and stretched out his leg. The slash was red and raised around the edges. It was scabbed over, but in a thin liquidy scab that was more of a translucent cover of the visible puddle of pus inside. He didn't have the streaks up his leg that meant blood poisoning, but I didn't think he needed blood poisoning to die. His whole leg was poisoned.

"How about you?" he asked.

"Oh, you know. It's going," I said. My legs were crossed and I had one bare foot up on my lap as I poked at the skin. The whole underside of my foot was white and soggy. It was like on huge blister. It didn't hurt, exactly, but it felt wrong the way the skin pulled and slid whenever I walked. Little sheets of it kept pulling away like I was pulling a spiderweb off my foot.

The electric sound of a microphone snapping into life cracked across the Arena.

_"Attention, Tributes. There will be a feast in one hour at the stand of trees. All of you are in desperate need of something. It might be worthwhile to take the risk."_

Arthur saw it in my eyes.

"No," he said. "You shouldn't go. You'll get killed."

"I can do it!" I said. "I'll be careful, and I'll leave if it looks bad, but I can make it."

"Everyone will be there," Arthur said.

"It'll be medicine. You'll die if you don't get it. You can't even walk. You can't walk, I won't be able to walk much longer, and we're both pooping faster than we can drink. It's not 'worth the risk'. It's our only chance," I said. We were in good shape- at least I was. I was still fast. Everyone else would be just as beat-down. Most of them more, if they couldn't even filter water as much as we did. It was just the Careers I'd have to watch out for. If I got there quick and left before they showed up I could save us both.

Arthur looked out after me as I stood. He couldn't walk, so there was nothing to do but watch.

"You're going to get killed," he said, in the resigned voice of someone who had seen it before.

"Just wait," I said. It was dangerous. I knew it. But sometimes the only option is one do-or-die risk. "You'll see."

* * *

**The title had nothing to do with the content. I couldn't think of anything so I did what I always do when I can't think of anything: Labyrinth.**

**Oh yeah someone asked this forever ago. You're allowed to sponsor stuff. It kind of gets approved based on however the heck I feel when I get the request.**


	36. Blood Feast

Andre D'Amour- District Three female

The feast was set to be at "the stand of trees". I just happened to be at the stand of trees. So I huddled down in the roots of one of the trees and waited until the hovercraft came to set up the feast. It was surreal to see six Capitolites descend from the hovercraft on a ladder and cut loose the supplies that had been dangling under the hovercraft. They didn't look, but they must have known I was there. After that, I'd never feel the same way about humanity. They were fifteen feet away from a starving child hiding and running for her life and they didn't even look at me. I used to think if people saw someone starving by the side of the road, they would feed them. I didn't think that anymore.

I waited nervously as the Capitolites unfolded a table's legs and set it up with a bizarrely out-of-place tablecloth. They set up various supplies and treats. It all looked amazing to my desperate eyes, but I knew what I needed as soon as I saw it. "_You all have something you need_," the voice had said. Yeah, and it was the same thing for every one of us: the rows of ill bottles left like an afterthought at the foot of the table. As soon as the ladder was drawn up and the hovercraft started to move, I grabbed two of them and a small sack of potatoes and got the heck out of there. This was no time for greed.

* * *

Switch Larson- District Eleven female

Somewhere along the line, I'd started talking to myself. The other myself. Some kind of loneliness thing, or trying to get in touch with my id or something. Ask a psychiatrist, I don't know.

_You should go to the feast_, the fearless me said.

_Nu-uh no way_, I said.

_You need clean water. It's coming out faster than it goes in_, the fearless me said.

_Yeah and that's what'll happen if I go. Because you poop when you die... that didn't sound as cool as it did in my head. But this is also my head..._

The melodic tinkling of a sponsor gift interrupted my argument with me. I opened the package and saw half a dozen heat packs and a roll of tape.

_See, we have everything we need_, I said.

_Gonna drink a heat pack?_ the fearless me asked.

_I'll just... drink even faster,_ I said. The other me didn't even have to tell me that was not how drinking impure water worked. I wasn't going to the feast, but eventually I was going to have to listen to her.

* * *

Katrina Moonshadow- District Seven female

_LMAO heck naw shmuck bait I am not going._

* * *

Cerise Dupin- District Eight female

Not gonna happen. Me and Ryx were staying put. His hand would fall off naturally in another day or two. It was already black and cold. We had the first aid kit and someone had just sponsored him some antibiotic cream, so Captain Hook and I were not going on a fool's errand to get some fresh food or new socks. We had crayfish and frogs. Good enough.

* * *

Tony Gear- District Six male

There was no one at the feast when I got there. I saw the white box with the red cross and made a beeline for it. I bent over to pick it up and the throwing knife sliced through the top of my head instead of killing me.

I tucked the first aid kit under my arm and ran. A blow like a punch in my back knocked me forward to my hands and knees. While I was still wallowing in the mud that half-covered me, another knife hit my ribs. The breath left me and I knelt gasping in the mud.

I looked over my shoulder and saw the Careers coming one by one from their hiding places. Sagar was first, followed by Percy, with Cyrene bringing up the rear. She looked up and over my prone body as something in the distance caught her eye.

"Dude, you stupid or something?" Sagar asked as he and Percy reached me. "Why would you go to the feast? That's schmuck bait!"

"Yeah, I know," I whispered around my collapsed lung. I'd know this could happen. And yet I'd dared to try. Bluster and big talk aside, I'd known I was probably going to die in the Games. If I hadn't come I still probably would have eventually. But I'd dared to go out trying to do something for someone else. I made it worth something.

* * *

Rigel Aspen- District Seven male

The Careers were gathered over a dying boy when I approached. Cyrene was the first to see me coming. She detoured around Sagar and Percy and started toward me, purposefully but not in a rush. I kept approaching until she was in earshot, then stopped and raised a finger.

"Hold on a minute," I said.

Cyrene paused. Taken aback by how brazenly unexpected it all was, she let me talk.

"Any of you all kill me and Alsace will come after you," I said. "You can kill me now. You'll be down one enemy and have earned another worse enemy, plus you'll splinter the Career pack. Or, you can let me take my stuff and leave. Then you tell Alsace which way you saw me go. You'll have his goodwill. He'll come after me. Eventually he'll find me. More likely than not he'll kill me, and more likely than not I'll get a few hits in. You'll be down an enemy, and when the Career pack naturally dissolves near the endgame, Alsace will be softened up for you."

Politics makes strange bedfellows. I could see the numbers running behind Cyrene's impassive face as she calculated percentages and outcomes like a betting program. She walked a few steps to the side, out of range in case I had a concealed weapon, and started back toward the feast with me beside her. I discreetly didn't comment on her being nearly entirely coated in mud.

Sagar and Percy, who had in the meantime noticed us, looked quizzically at Cyrene as she approached.

"Let him get his stuff," she said when we reached the trees.

"Say what?" Sagar said.

"He's Alsace's problem," Cyrene said. Sagar caught her meaning and smiled wolfishly. Percy looked between them and figured it out.

I didn't press my luck. I took a bottle of antibiotics, a canteen, a pair of socks lying next to it, and the axe that was left there for me. It was unbelievably light for its size, with just enough mass to give it heft. I left with the disconcerting background of three Careers watching me from behind. I turned back to look. In the distance, Sagar waved.

* * *

**14th place: Tony Gear- Killed by Sagar and Percy (technically Percy for those who like to keep track of their Tributes' kills)**

**Tony was a big character. He could have easily been disliked for his overconfidence, but he was kind of just confident in humanity- he extended the high regard he had for himself to everyone else he met as well. Had he been alone he probably would have lasted longer, but he was also a good enough guy to stick his neck out for his friend. He never had much chance of winning and instead went out like a good dude. Thanks CarlpoppaLOL for a normal guy with normal flaws in the often overblown world of SYOTs.**

**Just want to toot my own horn and say the title is not a generic title but in fact a reference to Blood Feast, one of the first "splatter" films and part of the genesis of what forty years later developed into the modern torture porn genre. Blood Feast is a LOT tamer though LOL.**


	37. Elegy

ANTONIO GEAR- Athur Harrington

In a lot of ways I was older than Tony. But he was going to be the one that lived longer.

* * *

PIKNEY REYNOLDS- Switch Larson

Sounds about right he'd last this long. He wasn't the kind to pick a fight.

* * *

Erwin Jackson- District Five mentor

How do you tell your daughter you didn't save her child? When Aurelia was born I thought it was a passage to another part of life for me. It was time for me to rest and enjoy my golden years and spoil my sweet little granddaughter. I'd thought I'd left the Arena. Never.

* * *

Lancia Audren- District Six mentor

Like Tony said, he could have won it all. A lot of kids can and don't. It wouldn't have surprised me either way. Maybe next year. Maybe not.

* * *

District Six

All his life, Maxon Gear had been a twin. Now he was a surviving twin. He lost not only a brother and a best friend but his very reflection. And the Jacksons lost another chance at the peace that had eluded the family line for generations.

* * *

Arthur Harrington- District Nine male

There wasn't any way out for me. Really my fate had been sealed as soon as the spear broke my skin. Now I could feel the fever setting in and see the red streaks of the poison reaching my blood. I was going to die. I'd tried to do something to better all the children left in a slave factory to spend their entire lives dying. That wasn't going to happen, but the question was what I was going to do with my last bits of life.

It took a minute to get to my feet. It was a strange feeling walking with one normal leg and one that dragged hot and heavy behind me. Tony and I hadn't moved far from the beginning of the Games. I could make it where I was going.

By the time the Corncopia came into sight my wound was weeping. Pinkish-clear streams of sticky drainage oozed down my leg and into the mud. _I'm a walking biological weapon_, I thought. If anyone drank the water around me without purifying it, well, they'd already die since it was germy, but they'd die even worse with all my germs in there.

A Career appeared in the mouth of the Cornucopia as I approached. I was hunched low and moving sneakily through the water. I looked like I was trying to go unseen, but I knew very well whoever was guarding the Cornucopia knew I was there.

When I was passing through the ring of platforms, a spear flashed from a Career I'd never even seen in the mouth of the Cornucopia. It hit me in the chest and I fell to my hands and knees. I tipped over on my side as the Sagar appeared, coming to retrieve his weapon.

It was odd how I didn't feel like I was dying. I just felt tired and weak, like I had been since the Games began. I clutched the spear shaft with both hands as I waited for Sagar. I felt at the wound in my leg and wiped at my mouth.

Sagar stood over me and grabbed the spear to yank it out. I pulled down on it with all my strength, arching m back to bring my head close to his as he was tugged downward. I spat in his face, coating his eyes and lips with the pus I'd scooped into my mouth.

Sagar retched in disgust and wiped his face. He stepped on my chest and put his hands back on the spear, yanking it out. He stuck it down into my throat and stepped back, gagging and spitting. I laughed around the gurgling blood. Imagine a Career, treated like a king all his life, stricken by an impoverished boy treated like nothing but garbage.

* * *

Andrea D'Amour- District Three female

As I was wandering, I passed a boy lying in the mud. I was far enough off that I didn't think he saw me. Plus he was badly hurt, and I wasn't sure he was even conscious. His leg was raised out of the water. It was the only part of him not covered in mud, and in its bareness I could see the horribly infected wound that streaked up it.

I had antibiotics- more than I needed. They were extra strength, the kind that cleaned out anything, good or bad, so they weren't prescribed unless it was an emergency. I could save him. If I didn't, I would die.

I knew what my fathers would do. _First, do no harm_. The patient before all else. But I'd been dreaming lately. I'd been dreaming of home, and my future, and all my life could be if I had one. And what if I did help him? I would be helping him live and helping myself die if he did. He would be grateful. He'd talk about me to his mentor and Caesar and his loved ones. And then I'd fade as his life went on and the Games became a smaller part of it, and I nothing but a small part of that. It was an option, then, to leave a boy to die. I had never thought that would be something I would consider.

Some time later, the boy stood and started to walk. I watched him go and in the end I never showed myself.

I used to think people would help a dying child.

* * *

**13th place: Arthur Harrington- Stabbed by Sagar**

**In the choice of which young Tribute to kill in the Bloodbath, Arthur was never considered. He was young, but his life and experiences gave him resilience and strength unmatched by most 18-year-old Tributes. He wasn't an innocent naif who didn't know what death was. He knew exactly how the world worked and that there was no way out. He took a madman's chance because that was the best hope he had. He was jaded enough and clever enough to make his own death into a dirty bomb, and we'll see how that effects Sagar. Thanks CarlpoppaLOL for a non-childish, not-cute little kid who is depressingly true to life in some cases.**

**Andrea got a bunch of POVs in a row because I needed this interaction with someone and she couldn't do it later because Arthur would be dead then.**


	38. Look Ma No Hands

Ryx Marker- District Three male

Cerise didn't have to do all of this for me.

We are about to complete the amputation of my hand. Mostly, I was scared beyond imagining. In all my books and everything I'd learned, there was nothing in my head I could match up to how bad this was going to be. A part of my body would just be _gone. _An entire hand. Five fingers. An opposable thumb I could use to grasp and manipulate things far past what any animal could do. A miracle I took for granted and whose disappearance would reassert itself with everything I tried to do past this day. Almost all my thoughts were occupied with that, but still, in the very back, there was a sliver of gratefulness.

Cerise didn't have to do this. I wasn't a particularly useful ally. I was smart and well-read, but those were societal skills. This was the jungle. She wasn't helping me out of anything I could do or any value my skills had. She was helping me because _I _had value. Just as a person.

"Ready?" Cerise asked. I couldn't speak.

"I'mjustgonnadoitokay-" Cerise said, as she ripped. Terror and panic overwhelmed me, but when the instant had passed, I realized it hadn't hurt at all. I'd known it shouldn't- the flesh was dead and the hand really wasn't connected other than a strip of skin- but knowing didn't overcome the instinct. All I felt was a lifting of weight. I looked at my arm and my hand was gone. My arm ended at the wrist in a whitish incompleteness. Flaccid ridges of flesh and a tiny flash of white bone stared back at me.

* * *

Cyrene Longuemare- District Four female

The spotty platforms of semi-dry land and the aquatic plants in varying heights made spotting my quarries difficult. However, it also made it difficult for them to spot me. In the end it was noise that gave them away. I was silent as I searched. They were silent too, for a long time, but eventually they undid themselves.

"It's definitely dead. It's ready to come off."

The male voice was hesitant and distant enough that I barely heard it. I waded to the edge of the cluster of cattails that hid my head poking out of the shoulder-deep water and looked out. The figure was almost impossible to see in all the mud. It was only when the figure beside him sat up that I saw them. Two Tributes were lying half on their sides in ankle-deep mud. One of them was rooting around in some sort of container.

I ducked under the water and swam in a long arc around them. When my head broke the surface I was behind them. I glided closer in the water, only the top of my head visible when I broke the surface to breathe.

When I heard the other figure speak, my eyes flashed. I'd hoped, knowing that Cerise was allied with a boy, but hearing her confirmed it. I reached the edge of the tiny platform they were lying on and lay crouched in the knee-deep water, hidden by the short grass. I'd seen the nature shows talking about how only one in three hunts were successful. I would wait for the perfect moment before I moved.

"I'mjustgonnadoitokay-" Cerise said. She yanked Ryx's necrotic hand off his arm, which was pretty impressive. Naturally they were both completely absorbed by the effort and had no idea I was five feet behind them. Ryx rocked back and gaped at his truncated arm. Cerise wiped her hand with a packaged wipe out of what I now saw was a small first aid kit. She picked up the parachute from a sponsor gift and drenched it with a bottle of antibiotics.

"Sorry," she blurted as she slapped the cloth over Ryx's exposed stump. He seized, started to scream, and fainted. It was the perfect moment.

As Cerise bent over Ryx and pushed him so he wouldn't land in the water, I crept up on hands and knees onto the dirt. I was a foot behind her, starting to stand, when some shadow or instinct spurred her to look behind her.

I snapped out one leg, aiming for her face. The kick hit her in the mouth and nose. It snapped her head back and she fell limp into the water. I could have left her then and it would have been done. But I wasn't doing this to remove competition. I was doing this to say something to the Capitol. I was telling them there was nothing, not anything, I wouldn't do for them.

I knelt by Cerise and pushed her head farther under the water. I kept my fingers entwined in her hair as bubbles rose and her lungs filled with water. There was a difference between killing and murder. In this I would publicly declare that my loyalty ran not only deeper than my self-preservation but deeper than any moral code.

I held Cerise's head underwater for fifteen minutes. I held it as the bubbles broke the surface and her chest stopped moving. I held it when she suddenly started to convulse after minutes of motionlessness. I noticed eventually as her skin slowly took on a bluish cast. I knew what I was doing. There were no excuses for it and no way to romanticise it. We trained to be capable for it and when the moment came I found that I was. I learned something about life and about evil as I watched Cerise die, and I learned something about myself. She slid closer and closer to death and I felt the reality that with every passing second I could pull her out and there would come the final second where that chance was irrevocably gone.

When the cannon sounded, I let go. I looked down at Ryx. Most people recovered in minutes after fainting. The blood loss and exhaustion had taken their toll on him. I bent over and slit his throat. As I left them behind, his blood was seeping into the water, drawing a reddish curtain over Cerise.

* * *

**12th place: Cerise Dupin- drowned by Cyrene**

**Cerise was strong enough to theoretically win, but she wasn't just fighting the other Tributes- she was fighting the entire Capitol. She got rigged into the Arena (it just wasn't explicit in her Reaping) and if Cyrene hadn't done the Capitol's work they would have sent another mutt like they used on Camille. She lasted this long on her merits and her number finally came up. Cyrene's form called for her to target the most rebellious Tribute so I matched up the two fates. Cerise was more complicated than an SYOT can give credit to. In an independent story she likely would have been one of the founders of the Mockingjay rebellion. It's still possible some of her writings that weren't lost will play a part. Thank Pi for two multifaced Tributes who felt like real individuals.**

**11th place: Ryx Marker- Throat slit by Cyrene**

**She just killed him because he was there. Sux. I was going to kill Ryx in the Bloodbath but his form asked that he not be a Bloodbath if possible. I'm pretty easy to convince and will do my best to accommodate. So he died here instead and nothing really changed since he's dead either way. Ryx was pretty much the annoying middle-school know-it-all, but we all had that phase to judge not lest someone pull up your facebook statuses when you were 12. He was a good kid. He was just 14 and acted like it. Thanks guesttwelve for kid who was just trying to be liked.**

**Due to the nature of the scene it would have interrupted the flow to provide Cerise a final POV so her obituary will be extra detailed to compensate.**


	39. What The People Want

RYX MARKER- Andrea D'Amour

We were from the same place. I might have passed him on the street and never known it. We could have been friends. We could have gotten married. But he was just one name in a million, one of the names that never brushed mine except in that bowl.

* * *

CERISE DUPIN- Katrina Moonshadow

People stronger than me were dying. I didn't think I'd make it this far. I thought it would just be Careers. How that would work when there were only six Careers and eight of us left I wasn't sure. I didn't think that far ahead.

* * *

Tillo Peters- District Eight mentor

We got robbed. The first time in years we had someone who could have won and some Career whacked her to make the Capitol happy. I wasn't upset about Fryderyk. He was terminal anyway and at this point I took any excuse to not feel it. But Cerise reminded me of me all those years ago. It was a miracle I ever won.

* * *

District Eight

Francis and Mari sought comfort in each other after their friends' deaths. The relationship amicably dissolved months later, but plenty of people have gotten back together after an initial breakup. Cerise's dear writer friend Victor was able to conceal some of her writings. He continued to circulate them in underground publications.

* * *

Percy Mordecai- District Four male

When I started the Games, I thought if I won, Tyson would love me forever. Now I wasn't the person I was before. I'd killed people. That changed you, and it wasn't something Tyson would ever be able to understand. I felt older, and more mature, and distant in more than just physical distance. It seemed like a long time ago that I knew Tyson- like Odysseus coming back years later and worrying that Penelope won't recognize him.

It was funny how thinking about Alsace made me happier than thinking about Tyson. Probably because a crush burns super bright and fizzles out quick. Nothing could come out of it. We were in the Arena, and Alsace wasn't looking for that anyway. He was just a cool guy. It was one of those things you thought about until it passed in its own time.

Daybreak came. We were getting ready to go hunting, except for Medusa and Andromeda, who were watching the supplies. As I was finishing a breakfast of rehydrated powdered eggs and honestly not-terrible bacon, Alsace slid off the platform into the water.

"Going after Rigel?" I asked.

"I'm going to find him today. I can feel it," Alsace said.

"Why do you care so much? It's not going to change anything," I said.

"You wouldn't understand," he said.

"No, there's just nothing _to _understand," I said. "You're wasting your time." I couldn't say what I wanted to. A Career couldn't tell another Career he was worried about him. It wasn't even just for his safety. I wanted Alsace to have a real life, not spend his time chasing dead cousins and worthless revenge. He was worth so much more than that. I couldn't tell him that I wished he'd let me go with him. Vengeance killing didn't allow for assistance.

"I've waited six years for this," Alsace said.

"Isn't there anything else you want? Let it go. Be your own person," I said.

"Isn't it funny you're talking about that," Alsace said. "Look, once he's dead, then I can start living, all right?" He started wading away.

"_Fine!" _I yelled. The temper that always got the better of me in the end kicked in. I jumped up and kicked the camping stove over. The flame sputtered and died out. I picked up the pot hanging over it and threw it into the Cornucopia, where it crashed into a stack of boxes and fell with a clatter. "Throw your life away. Waste everything. Stupid!"

_I sound like such an idiot when I get mad, _I thought as I was picking up my mess. It used to be Tyson could always calm me down. Tyson wasn't here now, and neither was Alsace.

* * *

Rigel Aspen- District Seven male

It took nine days for Alsace to catch up with me. I'd known it would happen. Every day in the Arena I'd wondered how long the stay of execution would be. It was nine days.

When I saw him in the distance, I ran. I was big. I had an axe. But I'd been living off frogs and cattails for a week and I'd only had clean water since the feast. The antibiotics had cleared up the vomiting and other unpleasantness, but I wasn't quite in tip-top shape yet. I preferred to beat Alsace by never coming within arm's reach of him.

I splashed my way to a mostly dry stretch of ground and ran for it. Alsace was coming after me full-speed. It hardly made a difference, since we were the same height, but I just felt like I was going faster when I wasn't wading through water.

My feet started to sink into the mud as the land sloped down until it was soft mud. There wasn't any water on the surface, just runny mud the texture of really thick water. It was up to my mid-calves when Alsace started to catch up. Packaged food and a full night's rest will do that.

"You can't run forever," he called after me, which was precisely what I intended to do.

Alsace Cartier- District One male

I saw him. Far ahead of me, wading through waist-deep water, I saw Rigel. In the flesh. Before me at last. He ran, but he wasn't going to get away this time.

I'd hoped I'd feel some sort of purification on finally facing my demon, but all I felt was anger. Anger that Lyon was dead. Anger that his life ended before it began. Anger that killing Rigel wouldn't bring him back and that I didn't care, I just wanted to hurt something else like I'd been hurt. I knew how selfish and senseless it was and I didn't stop. It hurts to know you're not the good guy.

Rigel slowed as the mud he was running through got deeper. I started to catch up and then was slowed myself by the same mud. But I was better-fed and better-rested and running off years of unexpressed resentment.

"You can't run forever!" I yelled as I waded into the mud after him.

"We'll see about that!" he yelled back.

* * *

Rigel Aspen- District Seven male

Alsace was right. I couldn't run forever. The mud under my feet was amorphous and shifted whenever I put weight on it. There was nothing solid for me to push off. Every time I stepped my feet pushed deep into it, leaving me stuck up to my knees. Each step it was harder to extract my legs from the gluey mud. I yanked my foot free with a sucking noise. Bubbles rose from the mud as I awkwardly turned around to face Alsace.

He didn't waste time. Drawing it out apparently wasn't required for vengeance, since he came right at me with a killing slash at my neck. I blocked it with the handle of my axe. Both of us winced and pulled back at the vibrations in our hands. I took a big step back to gain distance and slid back into the mud, which was now up to my waist.

Alsace twisted his sword arm so the blade sliced down my forearm as we broke the lock. I shoved the pointed head of the axe at his face and backed away more when he dodged. It took him a minute to get back into range as he too fought with the oozing mud. It was disconcerting and knocked us both off-balance to have no solid ground under our feet, just shifting softness. If he won this one, I hoped he enjoyed watching the replay, since it was the most awkward, stupid-looking fight in history.

Alsace Cartier- District One male

I wasn't thinking of Rigel at all. It was never about him. All of this had only ever been about Lyon. It was Lyon's image in my head as I tried to kill Rigel. All the loss and grief a child couldn't properly express and he translated into anger because that was easier to understand than death. Rigel was my symbol and I thrashed and clawed at him so I could destroy the pain, but that wasn't how it worked. I wasn't going to feel any better afterwards. That made me even sadder, and that perversely made me more violent.

I half-fell as I swung my sword and put out an arm for support. It sank into the mud and I had to clumsily push myself upright. The swing had no heft, since my legs weren't able to pivot and generate power. It was slow, and Rigel was easily able to parry it.

Rigel was two feet away and I could barely touch him. He kept scooting back away from me and with all the mud it took an agonizingly long time to reach him again. Mud hugged at my hips and imprisoned me like one of those horrible dreams where you're trying to run and can only move in a lazy torpor.

Rigel looked down at the mud around his waist. His eyes flickered and his face changed. He looked up with something like panic and opened his mouth like he was going to say something to me.

I didn't want to hear it. I held my sword in front of me and stuck it through his chest.

* * *

Rigel Aspen- District Seven male

The sword skewered me like a butcher bird's prey. I felt my face go slack with the knowledge that I was going to die, with what I'd been about to tell Alsace, and with the fittingness of it all.

"Quagmire," I whispered, as my body started to slump against the pillowy mud. The sword slid out of me.

"What?" Alsace's shocked expression, about to break into triumph, knitted in confusion.

"We're in a quagmire," I said. It took so much effort to talk, but it needed to be said. I smiled. Blood dribbled out of my mouth.

Alsace took it in slowly. His shoulders relaxed as his priority shifted from the fight. He looked down at the mud, now sucking at his waist and my armpits.

"Isn't that just poetic," I said. "That's what revenge does, doesn't it? It sucks you down and swallows you up."

* * *

Alsace Cartier- District One male

I wriggled in the mud, trying to back up toward the edge. It hadn't looked so distant until now. My mind shied from what Rigel was saying. It was a nightmare from a children's adventure story. Black mud that sucked you farther and farther until your head went under and you were just gone. It couldn't be real. I couldn't bear it to be real.

"You had so many chances," Rigel chided as he lay dying. "But you kept coming. And now you're too deep. You threw your life away. You wasted it. And you didn't just waste yours. You dragged me down with you. I'm gonna bleed to death soon. You're going to sink until you die in clinging blackness, not even knowing how far away the surface is. And I'm not sorry."He laid his head down. His cheek sank into the mud. It was like a blanket slowly enfolding him as he fell asleep.

Whimpering breaths rose in my throat as I kept trying to pull out and realized with mounting panic that none of my attempts were working. What had seemed like merely bothersome mud metamorphosized into a living thing gripping my legs and drawing me down into its underworld.

The mud crept up until it touched the undersides of my arms. I shoved at it, digging and scooping and trying desperately to push it down and myself up. It flowed like water into any depression I made. Still there was nothing under my feet. I sank ever farther and the bottom was nowhere to be found.

Rigel's cannon came as only the right side of his face was visible. He looked peaceful, like he was lying down in bed to rest. I grabbed at his body, trying to use it as a float. It pressed down into the mud. I felt an arm brush my leg as he sank.

I pawed at the surface as my arms and shoulders slid under the water. It was harder to lift them. Claustrophobia slammed through me and wiped every thought from my mind at the thought of not being able to move them at all and being completely helpless. I bucked and arched as the mud reached my neck. My movements made swells and breaks in the mud that pulled me down with them as they settled.

I started to cry when the mud reached my chin. My thrashing efforts only barely brought my arms to the surface. I craned my neck as the mud slid up to my mouth. I was screaming then, but not for long.

My head was so bent that my nose was almost the highest point. That meant that before I suffocated the mud closed completely over my head. On the surface, I was gone. But I wasn't dead. I was awake for two minutes after that, trying to breathe in the mud and get it over with but stopped by my body's failsafes. I regretted it then, in those two minutes. I regretted the choices that brought me here with no one to blame but myself. I regretted it too late.

* * *

**10th place: Rigel Aspen- Stabbed by Alsace**

**Rigel was a formidable Tribute. He was a possible Victor from the start and was popular enough to win it all. He was strong but also smart, smart enough to know that war is a fickle, fatal proposition and that the best battle is one never fought. Even with a Career vendetta against him he got this far. Had he not been distracted for an instant by the revelation that they were in a quagmire, the fight would have gone differently. I don't know who would have won, but he would have at least gotten in some hits. Rigel had some cynicism from his hard upbringing, but he never let it overcome him. He had a sense of humor even in death and was cultured enough to remark on the poetic irony of it all. Thanks Sparky for two Tributes whose stories intertwined but were their own people.  
**

**9th place: Alsace Cartier- Drowned in quagmire**

**People have seen the obsessed Tributes before. I've even had them once or twice. It was because of that I went down this route. My first inclination is to subvery expectations and have the obsesser get over it, but I already did that with Priscilla. As I cast around for a novel way to do this, I came across the idea of NOT having character development for once. Some people don't learn their lesson and don't improve. The Arena fit perfectly for a symbolic ending like a middle-grade English class book. Revenge is a venom, like Aunt May said. Alsace didn't let go and instead of lifting the pain for his family, he doubled it and shared it with Rigel's. He wasn't a bad guy, as seen when he interacted with literally anyone but Rigel, but he didn't address his faults and it did him in. Thanks Sparky for the other half of the pair. (I think they were both Sparky. I lost my notes changing to a new computer)**


	40. Birds of Prey

ALSACE CARTIER- Percy Mordecai

I was closer to Alsace than I had been to Tyson. That's messed up.

* * *

RIGEL ASPEN- Katrina Moonshadow

_Alsace finally got you, huh? Looks like you got him back though. Nice._

* * *

Sagar Dewpont- District Two male

_Outlier bastard._

When Arthur spit pus into my face, that was definitely the grossest thing that ever happened to me. Maybe the grossest thing that ever happened to anyone ever. I went through half a dozen wet wipes from our first aid kit and my skin was still crawling.

All this time later, his nasty Nine filth was still haunting me. My left eye was fine, but my right eye was just plain gross. I'd been popping antibiotics like candy. It was helping, but more on a 'my eye wasn't oozing out of my face level' than an 'actually making it better' level. My eyeball wasn't swelling anymore, which was nice. It had even started to return to its normal size. The problem was it wasn't exactly working anymore. An eyeball has one job. It sees stuff. I still had a working eye, so I had most of my field of vision, but I was getting increasingly uneasy about the tunnel vision. I'd been experimentally shutting my left eye for days. At first it was just a foreboding little ring around the peripherals. At this point all I could see from my right eye was a blurry dot in the center.

No one could know about this, of course. That was why I was out hunting instead of volunteering to guard the supplies. As far as the others knew, I just had a really gross, bloodshot eye that leaked tears occasionally. It looked super gnarly when I checked my reflection.

Even if I was more of just wandering than really hunting, I was glad I hadn't stayed at the Cornucopia, though it would have been easier. I didn't want to be near the other Careers. I was scared. Worried, maybe more accurately. I was wounded. That made me weakened. I was a Career and I knew how we were. We were sharks. We might swim the same direction because there was something there that we all wanted, but we were not friends. To a shark, there was only himself and food. They just wanted blood in the water. They didn't care whose. If the others found out I was blind in one eye that would be it for me. I knew that was true because it was exactly what I'd do to them.

* * *

Katrina Moonshadow- District Seven female

I was down in the dumps. For one, I was wallowing in a swamp and had been for nearly two weeks. My hair was clotted and dreadlocking with filth. I did not want to think about the state of my panties. That was knowledge mankind wasn't meant to know. My skin felt just weirdly pruney and it didn't hurt but I was just _tired _of it. All that, and I just felt mortality creeping up on me. I was Seven's last chance now. Rigel had been a much better bet.

_I'm daydreaming,_ I thought when I saw the parachute. It landed softly on the water in front of where I huddled on my knees against a stand of tall grass. I expected it to vanish when I reached out and was pleasantly surprised when my fingers closed on soft cloth.

I opened the package and started crying before I even saw what it was. I _smelled _what it was: _pancakes. _The fundamental food of any Seven girl. Thoughts of home and people who cared enough to rally around me brought hope back into me. I opened the box. Three fluffy round pancakes stacked on a plate. There were two little packs beside the plate, one with a pat of butter and one full of syrup.

_Mom always said not to do this, _I thought as I opened the syrup pack, stuck my finger in, and licked it. Two weeks without sugar had reset my taste buds so the syrup exploded like pure sucrose. I set the butter on the pancakes and poured the syrup on after it melted. I took a bite and wasn't down in the dumps anymore.

* * *

Switch Larson- District Eleven female

"All right, let's see what we can list among our assets," I said as our newly minted alliance huddled in as close to a circle as three points could make. At this point, we had to do what we could. Three outliers against five Careers meant an obvious alliance. When Andrea and I caught sight of each other we'd sort of glanced around and pretty quickly met. We set out to find Katrina. She wasn't hard to find, since as soon as she saw us she stood up and called 'Hey! Alliance?'

"Two bags," Andrea said, tossing her empty plastic bags into the space between us. "One extra pair of socks. Extra-strength antibiotics. A roll of duct tape." We'd been through her and my supplies when we first met, but we were re-inventorying to add what Katrina might bring.

"I got two heat packs left and some plastic bags. Plus another roll of duct tape," I said.

Katrina started digging into one pocket of her cargo pants after another. She tossed a pocketknife onto the pile. A lighter. A spool of thread with a needle. A pair of socks. An empty tin can. A bottle of iodine. My eyes, along with Andrea's, got wider and wider. A roll of bandages. A multitool. She dug around in her pants again and patted the pockets. She found one thing still left and pulled out a camouflage paint compact, which she dropped on the pile.

"You had all that?" I asked, awestruck.

"I got a lot of stuff at the Bloodbath," she said.

"You're _rich!" _Andrea said.

"One more thing," she said. She reached into the waistband of her pants. I was fully expecting her to pull an automatic rifle out of her trouser leg. She came up with a plate. Andrea and I regarded the last underwhelming offer.

"Sorry," Katrina said, a smile tugging at her mouth. "If we'd met up an hour earlier…"

* * *

Andrea D'Amour- District Three female

The three of us sat around our pile of supplies, trying to divine the one hypothetical future where this pile of stuff sparked a plan that would let us kill the Careers.

"This is probably hella flammable," Switch said, regarding the hot pack.

"The lighter doesn't really work," Katrina said. "Who puts a non-waterproof lighter in a swamp Arena?"

"The juice is still flammable. We just have to light it somehow," I said.

Wiress may be fading, but her sense of humor wasn't gone. She had to have had the money together for some time. But she waited until I said that to drop the parachute as if on cue.

"I hope it's a flamethrower," Switch said as I opened the package.

Pretty close. It was a slingshot, a bottle full of chemicals of some sort, and two waterproof matches. So I was thinking our plan might be something involving fire.

"Wiress is my favorite person in the world," Katrina said. She looked guiltily at the sky. "Other than Loki."

* * *

**I did Powerpuff Girls recently. I thought of other female groups and the first that came to mind was Birds of Prey. That was a pretty lit series back when I was first getting into comics. I haven't seen the movie but I hear it's good.**


	41. Hurricane's Eye

Andromeda Dior- District One female

Medusa and I were on guard duty. Truth be told, I'd been looking forward to it. I liked Medusa. We lay stretched out leaning against some boxes, our arms crossed behind our heads.

"I-" before the first letter was out of my throat I coughed and switched it. "When I win, I'm going to buy my mother a nice house and anything she wants."

"I'm going to move far away. All the way across the District, or farther if they let me. I'll start a whole new life," Medusa said.

I hadn't expected a response, and definitely not one as personal as that. I went into the Games determined to conceal my insecurities and do whatever it took. I felt a little more open around Medusa, and it looked like she felt the same about me. I knew we'd still kill each other. Friendship doesn't run that deep. But we were what Careers call friends: someone you would kill last.

"It will probably be Cyrene," I said. I glanced over to gauge her response. It was dangerous to flirt with betraying an ally. Double-talk and layers of meaning couched conversations of that caliber. I wasn't _saying _we should watch out for her, but I _was _saying that if Medusa said it I would cautiously pick up on it.

"Or you," Medusa said.

My heart quickened. I didn't visibly react but I certainly did internally.

"You think so?" I asked in what I hoped was a casual tone.

"Why not? You're as trained as anyone else. More than Percy and smarter than Sagar," Medusa said.

I didn't think she knew how much that meant to me. I couldn't tell her straight out, but I thought Medusa was about the coolest person in the world. Cool name, cool hair, cool attitude. Everything I thought of when I thought of a Career. And she thought I was cool too.

* * *

Medusa Gorgona- District Two female

I didn't want to leave the Arena. I liked it better here than in Two. There were a lot of people in Two. A lot of people to look down on me and make me feel like a monster just for being what I was. I hadn't understood it at first. I hadn't understood what it was that made me inherently unlovable. And now I finally did understand. It was nothing about me. It was the people around me. And they weren't here anymore.

I fit with this group. I had an equal position and was valued on my merits. Cyrene respected me. Sagar and Percy had feared me, which was respect in its own way. Alsace had viewed me as one of the group. And Andromeda actually liked me. She actually wanted to be with me and talk to me. It hurt me to my heart to think of what could have been if we'd grown up together. I used to always know in the back of my mind that if I wanted to go get ice cream or see a movie or whatever and I picked up the phone to call a friend, there would be no one to call. I could have called her. We could have had a sleepover before sleepovers became a little girl thing that teens looked down on but remembered fondly, but that I couldn't remember at all, because I'd never had one.

"I'm going to miss this," I said. I looked out at the monotonous brown of the Arena.

"What, the Arena?" Andromeda asked. She turned and smiled at the idea.

"Yeah, the Arena," I said. "The Games. The Career pack. You're the best friends I've ever had. Isn't that sad?"

"I never had many friends either," Andromeda said. "The other students didn't like me since I wasn't rich."

"Well la-dee-dah," I said. "Didn't stop you from getting picked and them from getting a fat nothing." When she said it like that it _did _seem kind of stupid to ostracize someone from the purest meritocracy based on wealth.

"I guess I'll miss some of this, too," Andromeda said. More of that double-talk and revealing feelings not by stating them but by how close you were willing to get close to saying them.

Andromeda and I were side-by-side, close enough to touch. When I felt something touch my hand I tensed, but I didn't stop Andromeda from taking my hand in hers. Neither of us acknowledged it. It was the simplest thing, something two girls did so easily when they were friends and wanted to say valued each other. We lay like that, holding hands, treasuring a moment that couldn't last but was unforgettable for having ever existed.

* * *

**Short lil chapter before big stuff goes down.**


	42. High Noon

Katrina Moonshadow- District Seven female

It was almost high noon. A portentous time in any old western story. We'd chosen that time to strike partially because it just happened to be how long it took us to sneak up to the Cornucopia and partially because we were hoping the guard Careers might be cooking lunch over some sort of flame. We were gratified to see Andromeda poking a spoon into a pan set atop a camping stove.

Trying to out-stealth the Careers sounded like a suicide mission. In fact, it had worked so far precisely _because _it was a suicide mission. No one in a million years expected a bunch of outliers to try to sneak up to an occupied Cornucopia in broad daylight. That, combined with the vegetation and mud tucked into our heads, the only part visible above the water, let us get within throwing distance of the Cornucopia. Andrea had the slingshot out and was slid the bottle out of the bag at a moment when Andromeda and Medusa happened to both be looking in other directions. It was then the voice came from behind us.

* * *

Sagar Dewpont- District Two male

It was almost high noon. The movement of the sun was the only way we could tell time, so it was how we knew when to switch off guard duty. The sun climbed toward its zenith as I slogged back toward the Cornucopia.

As I approached I saw two drifting lumps of vegetation. They drifted toward the Cornucopia in an oddly erratic fashion. Human eyes see movement like no other animal can. It only took an instant for me to put it together.

_Are you actually for real? _Two of the outliers had apparently banded together and decided to _attack the Cornucopia. _It was so audacious I was actually speechless for a moment. But two could play at that game.

I slunk low in the water as I crept up behind the trio. If I threw my spear, the one I didn't hit would yank it out and use it against me. No problem, I'd just get up close and personal. Right when one of them started to stir and I heard a snap, I spoke up.

* * *

Andrea D'Amour- District Three female

"Hey."

Our alliance definitely didn't have any boys, and that was definitely a boy's face. Which meant either Sagar or Percy or both were right behind us.

_Go big or go home. _I launched the bottle at the Cornucopia as the water exploded behind me.

Switch Larson- District Eleven female

A male voice hit my ears and finally the other me took over.

I whipped around and grabbed blindly. While I didn't get a grasp on Sagar's spear, I did manage to whack it aside so it didn't skewer me. I leaned in closer so the spear became awkwardly long. I headbutted Sagar on the bridge of his nose. Even as the tears came to his eyes he punched me in the gut. Then Andrea and Katrina hit him from the sides.

* * *

Andromeda Dior- District One female

"Hey."

It wasn't a loud voice, but Careers are attuned to any noise. Medusa and I looked over and saw the glitter of a glass bottle as it pinwheeled incongruously in the air, trailing fire like a comet.

_What in the world? _I reacted before the thought finished in my head. Medusa and I dove to the side as the molotov cocktail landed. It burst against a stack of crates, sending glass flying everywhere and flammable chemicals spraying across the supplies. They lit up like a match, since the Gamemakers undoubtedly wanted that cinematic outcome and souped the chemicals up far past what they would normally do.

We must have been a nightmare for the cameramen. The spectacular conflagration was too good to cut away from, but the language coming from me and especially Medusa was not something they could broadcast. We both grabbed the nearest fillable object and started throwing water.

* * *

Sagar Dewpont- District Two male

_Oh…._

That wasn't two lumps of vegetation. That was three lumps that had blurred into two. I saw that now, after it separated and outliers came at me from both sides. I repositioned to keep Rachel between me and the other two. This still wasn't over. Multiple combatants usually get in each other's way unless they're specifically trained in group fighting. I could already see Andrea and Katrina adjusting as they tried to get at me without distracting Rachel.

Andrea came at it from another direction by ducking underwater and yanking my leg. I fell back in the water and Katrina flopped onto my upper half to push my underwater. I yanked Rachel down with me so if they drowned me they had to drown her. All this time Rachel and I were pummeling each other in closeup blows. In the distance, someone screamed.

* * *

Medusa Gorgona- District Two female

I scooped water into an empty dehydrated meal package and threw it onto the spreading fire. It was already eating through our sleeping bags and anything else combustible. My bigger concern was the poison supplies we hadn't really used but couldn't be good to inhale.

Fire streamed down across the platform like lava as the chemicals flowed toward the water. Like waking up and realizing the alarm hadn't gone off, I had a flash of recognition right as the camping stove exploded. Searing-hot bits of metal hit me just as I crossed my arms in front of my face. That saved my exposed flesh, but the coating of fuel immediately ignited my hair and clothes.

_They were actually right all this time, _I thought as I dropped like a rock and rolled toward the water. All those elementary school drills were we did little singsong chants and practiced rolling in case we ever happened to catch on fire. I felt the flames squish lower as I rolled and die entirely when I hit the water.

"Are you okay?" Andromeda's face peered down on me from the edge of the platform.

"I'm fine," I said, ignoring the pain from mostly first and some second-degree burns. I hauled myself back onto the platform and resumed throwing water.

* * *

Katrina Moonshadow- District Seven female

We needed to go _now._ We had until Andromeda and Medusa subdued the flames. Then they would join the fight and we'd have no chance.

I pulled out my pocketknife and looked at Andrea. She knew anatomy and stuff. She caught my meaning and her eyes swept over Sagar as she looked for something we could attack that wasn't his midsection or head, both blocked by Rachel. She came to a conclusion and grabbed his arm, pulling it out straight.

"His armpit!" she yelled.

I heard a noise of confusion from Sagar that echoed my thoughts, but I trusted her, and I dove in. I stuck the knife into his armpit and was amazed at the amount of blood the short blade produced.

Sagar screamed and bucked, almost throwing Andrea off. Blood was already clouding the water, hopefully from him and not from Rachel, and the cloud spread as I stabbed again and again. Sagar shoved Rachel off him with his free arm and moved to attack me and Andrea. Rachel fell on his arm from behind and pulled him back.

When his eyes went scared and he started to thrash, I pulled away. Andrea and Rachel dropped his arms and shoved him back simultaneously. While he was still getting upright, we fled. We didn't have time to wait for the cannon. Sagar was now concerned with his hemorrhaging instead of us. We had to get out before his friends came for backup.

* * *

Sagar Dewpont- District Two male

_So much blood so much blood I'm bleeding out oh my god so much blood._

That wasn't me being a worrier. The water around me was red with my blood. I knew some of it was Rachel's, but so much was mine. I didn't care if they were getting away. I had to get back to the Cornucopia and stop the bleeding.

I made it to the platform but couldn't haul myself up. The flesh of my tattered armpit pulled and stretched as I tried to raise my arm. I was only when Andromeda and Medusa noticed and hauled me by my shirt that I could lie among the smoldering remnants of our supplies.

I tried to speak and couldn't. It wasn't necessary anyway. Medusa and Andromeda could clearly see I was bleeding out and would die in minutes if we didn't stop the bleeding. They stood over me and exchanged a pitying and unsure look.

_No. I'll die in minutes unless _I _stop the bleeding. _It was a cold equation. It was too late in the game and my wound was too severe to come back from. I was more trouble than I was worth. A Career who couldn't fight was a racehorse that couldn't run.

It would have been bearable if it wasn't so unfair. All my life I'd been told it was survival of the fittest and the strong deserve the spoils. I was stronger than any of those girls. If they hadn't come at me three on one, if I hadn't been blind in one eye, there wouldn't have been a fight. I wouldn't be lying here bleeding to death while they got away. I was stronger. I was the one who deserved this. Nothing could take that away, not even the feeling of Medusa's foot on my back as she nudged my dying body back into the water.

* * *

Andrea D'Amour- District Three female

The sun beat down on our backs as we fled as fast as anyone could in waist-deep water. Cattails batted at our faces and arms as we splashed through the ring. The Careers couldn't see us anymore and that gave me a beautiful sense of safety.

We reached the other side of the ring and looked out at the open swampland. Rachel stumbled. As she fell in front of me I saw the blood pouring from her back.

* * *

Switch Larson- District Eleven female

I'd barely even felt them. I'd known on some level I was getting shallowly stabbed in the back by an awkwardly held spear, but I couldn't let myself feel pain then. My only chance for survival was to subdue my opponent. Wounds taken in the meantime were a chance I just had to take. And now I was paying the piper.

I braced my hands on the mud beneath me in the calf-deep water. My breath came heavy and each inhale was deeply refreshing. I felt Andrea and Katrina's ministrations as they tried to stop the bleeding.

_You got us both killed, _I told the brave me.

_I'm the only reason you got this far, _she answered. I knew she was right. Sagar could have easily killed us, even three-on-one. Without someone fighting at something temporarily near his level none of us would have reached the cattails.

_I don't suppose you can keep me going without blood? _I asked.

_I don't think it works like that, _the brave me replied.

_All right, _I said. _That _was _pretty cool, though, what we did._

_It really was, _I answered. Andrea was supporting my with an arm on my chest so I didn't faceplant into the water. Blood billowed in the water around us.

A cannon sounded.

_We got him, _I said, and I smiled. A few minutes later, I wasn't there to hear my own cannon.

* * *

**8th place: Sagar Dewpont- bled to death, caused by Katrina directly**

**Sagar was kind of a blowhard. He was a strong Career but not the strongest and wouldn't have lasted this long without this year's more solid than usual Career pack. Overconfidence and a few unlucky breaks did him in here. He was sort of the closest to a villain but was really just a normal Career and this year didn't have a villain. Thanks Reader Castellan for a Career actually willing to kill. That makes stories SO MUCH easier to write.**

**7th place: Switch Larson- bled to death, caused by Sagar**

**This time I got to let reality in and highlight plain old blood loss is gonna kill a lot of people. Rachel was feared by many to be a Mary Sue, but just because you're cool and unemotional in a fight doesn't mean the other guy can't also be. Rachel did extremely well against Sagar and was instrumental to the Birds of Prey being able to kill him, but it did take all three. Rachel was dealt a bizarre hand in life and handled it with a little confusion and a lot of humor. Thanks Tinks for another strong woman and a scrappy fighter.**


	43. Dangerous Visions

**CRAP I FORGOT A SUPER IMPORTANT NOTE: PrinceofCorinth has an SYOT at s/13555658/1/Stay-Inside-The-15th-Hunger-Games so everyone please submit because I submitted and want it to be able to start.**

* * *

Cyrene Longuemare- District Four female

"So the outliers got him," I asked Medusa and Andromeda.

"It was all three of them," Andromeda said. Medusa didn't look up from smearing burn cream on her arms.

"We should move out now, before they split up. "Torch the rest of the supplies and take what we can carry." One last burst and it would be the endgame. Gloriously avenge Sagar, or something like that. But to be honest I didn't care he was dead.

Hlenn Rambutan- District Eleven mentor

I wondered if Rachel was still two souls in Heaven or if they merged. Dying wasn't really that dreaded in Eleven. Whatever came next, we knew it had to beat living. And to me it was even milder. It was just shedding, like a caterpillar. Something we were meant to do and something that wasn't the end. No caterpillar wants to stay that way forever.

* * *

Percy Mordecai- District Four male

Cyrene had gotten her way. We'd reached the point, imperceptible until it was passed, where splitting the pack wasn't an option. It was a Mexican standoff where anyone who tried to leave would be killed by the others. Even if one of us did manage to sneak off, the others would have a new reason to bond even harder so they could all have a scapegoat to focus each other on instead of becoming the scapegoat themselves. We were in this until the end. Allies until death.

It must have taken at least an hour for the supplies to burn past being useful. We'd filled three backpacks with food and anything else we thought we might need. If we weren't right and ended up needing something we'd burned, so be it.

Katrina and Andrea were long gone when we set out to find them. The one clue they left was the trail of blood Rachel left in the cattails. It told us which way they went and went cold when we reached the other side, as cold as Rachel's floating body. The blood pooling out around her and dispersing into the water left no sign of where her living allies had gone.

_Why'd it have to be Sagar? _Not that I missed him. He was just the one I would have wanted had I gotten to pick who I was up against on the last day. If it had turned out the way I wished, it would have been Cyrene the outliers had killed. She was the one that gave me the feeling that however the final fight turned out, she'd anticipated it and run half a dozen simulations in her head.

We were all hoping we'd find Katrina and Andrea before nightfall. It was too far along now to post guards and get any sleep. We'd be on our feet until we either killed them both or some tiny spark set us off like gunpowder.

Katrina Moonshadow- District Seven female

It weighed on my mind as Andrea and I slogged silently, Rachel's body far behind us. I felt perversely like a bad friend. We weren't friends, not really, but what we'd went through until this point made a bond even if we tried to refuse it. And so I felt guilty when I was about to do something that wasn't at all wrong.

"Andrea?" I said, and stopped walking.

"Yeah?" she asked. She stopped ahead of me.

"I think I should go on my own now."

I didn't see the disappointment I'd been afraid of in Andrea's face. I saw relief that reflected my own thoughts. We both knew it was too late in the game for allies. We wished it was different, but this wasn't something we could change.

"Yeah. We should," she said. She turned and pointed in a random direction away from the Cornucopia. "I go that way, you go that way?"

"Sounds good," I said. We looked at each other before we split. We both leaned in a tiny bit for a hug neither of us saw through. I turned and started walking. I heard the sloshing as Andrea did the same.

As soon as I was out of sight a parachute fluttered down to me. I opened the package, hoping for body armor but knowing the package was far too small.

I took out a dagger. A small, unadorned dagger, the sort District Seven could afford to send. It was better than the pocketknife with the two-inch blade I'd used to gouge the life out of Sagar. I thought of Loki back in the Games center. Based on the timing of the gift, it seemed he thought I'd made the right decision.

* * *

Andrea D'Amour- District Three female

I should have seen Rachel's wounds earlier. How did I not think about how she must have gotten hurt fighting Sagar? But- and it was something I'd never tell anyone, not even my parents- I was glad I was too late. Even as I tried to stem the bleeding I was hoping I was too late. I wanted Rachel to live, but not as much as I wanted myself to live. I never knew I was so selfish. But no one else is going to take care of you. Sometimes you have to value yourself.

The sun was dipping near the horizon when I finally stopped to rest. No matter how far I went, I wouldn't feel like it was far enough. The Careers could blow through our head start like nothing. I'd been in the Arena two weeks. Even though I wasn't starving or seriously dehydrated, being in the Arena just _ate _at you. I was worn down. I felt like an old woman. I didn't have the easy, boundless energy a child could count on. If I tried to sprint, for the first time in my life, I didn't know if I could. The Arena had chipped away my reserves until I was faced with the cold reality that a human body had limits.

It wasn't sleep that came over me as I leaned against the shelf at the edge of a patch of greenery covered in ankle-deep water. It was a sort of advanced stage of relaxation that felt akin to the stories I'd heard of soldiers falling asleep while marching. I wasn't asleep. I just wasn't entirely awake. The Arena blurred around me like an interruption in the night that when you wake the next morning you can't say for sure whether it was a dream or reality.

"Hey. You up?"

_That's Rachel's voice. _The thought shocked my eyes open. There she was, sitting on mud that was oddly not displaced by her weight.

"I'm losing it, since you're dead," I said.

"No sh-crap, Sherlock," Rachel said. _Nice of dream-Rachel to censor herself for me, _I thought. "I know you were hoping I'd die, by the way. It's all right. I felt the same about you."

"I didn't want to turn into something like this," I said as I sat up.

"It's not your fault. I just came here to say you better win. I straight up _died _fighting with you. Make it worth it," Rachel said. She looked over her shoulder. "Uh, you might want to make it worth it _right now."_

I woke up, all the way this time. I dove into the water and felt Percy's throwing knife skim across my hair. After swimming as far as I could underwater, I surfaced to find the Careers circled around me. Percy was behind me, already getting another throwing knife ready. Medusa and Andromeda were on my flanks. The only one missing was Cyrene. Then my blood ran cold as I realized she wasn't missing at all.

A hand closed on my leg and yanked it out from under me. I fell thrashing into the water as Cyrene surfaced, dangling my head under the surface. I hadn't even heard her jump in. How long had she been underwater?

My immediate and primal fear when my head hit the water was that Cyrene was going to drown me. That was put to rest when she yanked my leg, pulling ey closer to the surface. She let go of my leg and grabbed me by the shirt. With her free hand she jammed her knife into my Adam's apple and tore it out crookedly, severing both windpipe and arteries.

_It wasn't my fault I got like this, _I thought in the minute it took to die. Even though they barely regarded me at all, I hoped the Careers knew that. They probably didn't care, which meant there was still someone I hadn't sunk as low as.

* * *

**6th place: Andrea D'Amour- Stabbed by Cyrene**

**Since she didn't have allies for a long time, Andrea's fortune-telling and medical abilities didn't show up much. I didn't have room at first to show the visions she started to experience in the Arena, so I made up for it here. Andrea got this far not by her background, other than preventing trench foot, but mostly by simple resilience. She allied at the right point and the alliance broke at the right point, since two would have been even easier to find. She went out here because the Careers did the smart thing for once and went after an outlier four-on-one. Thanks MRKenn for Andrea, who was bright and lively despite Panem and showed that it's individuals who die in the Games, not faceless crowds.**

**I know this is petty but Erwin, Loki, Frankie and Nassor would like to protest the idea that I only let girls and gentle boys win. And also Bambi, who slit one opponent's throat and beat another to death with a stick. Nubu, Hades and Randy do not protest because they _are _gentle beans. I actually left Kazuo out not because I forgot him (for once LOL) but because he isn't a gentle bean but he's not exactly hardcore either? He won the Resurrection Games after spending most of it bonding with Thompson.  
**


	44. Lil Stubby Chapter

ANDREA D'AMOUR- Katrina Moonshadow

I hadn't really been hoping. I knew a single cannon meant it wasn't the Career breakup. I guess I was right to leave her. But if I hadn't, maybe we could have fought back. A fool's dream, really, but all dreams are in Panem.

RACHEL LARSON- Katrina Moonshadow

I really hadn't thought I'd make it this far. Maybe I really did have a chance. Most non-Career Victors probably didn't think they'd win. It took a lot to win the Games, and it was something you couldn't really know until you'd lived it. Part of it was something inside a person. That must be the part I had, since I certainly wasn't the strongest or smartest.

Hlenn Rambutan- District Eleven mentor

I wondered if Rachel was still two souls in Heaven or if they merged. Dying wasn't really that dreaded in Eleven. Whatever came next, we knew it had to beat living. And to me it was even milder. It was just shedding, like a caterpillar. Something we were meant to do and something that wasn't the end. No caterpillar wants to stay that way forever.

District Eleven

The bullies of Eleven breathed a little easier with Rachel gone, which was exactly the legacy she would have wanted. Arthur bemoaned the loss of a bug investment. It was expensive to buy a worker and even more expensive to train them.

* * *

**Stubby lil chapter since I'm doing something I do now and then. I have a vision in my head for a Victor story I think would be cool, but I haven't seen as much direct opinion in the reviews and am unsure what the readers want. Therefore I am inviting opinions on who should win, either in reviews or PMs. Be as detailed or as petty as you want! I shall review the results as I brainstorm the next chapter.**


	45. Felt Restless Wrote a Chapter

ANDREA D'AMOUR- Cyrene Longuemare

It didn't make me happy, killing people. I wasn't sorry for what I did to stay alive and make a life in this country, but it wasn't something I was proud of. Especially not an outlier like Katrina. Medusa or Percy or Andromeda chose this life and its risks. Andrea was just a girl. I thought I remembered her saying she wanted to be a doctor. That wasn't someone to be proud of killing.

* * *

Gidget Ford- District Three mentor

It was selfish how I always thought of the parents first when my Tributes died. I wasn't dead- though I _had _died, weirdly enough- but losing a child was a far more nightmarish thought to me. Like any other parent, I'd die a hundred times before I watched my child die. The D'Amours and the Markers were living what I, someone who had been through the Hunger Games twice, wouldn't wish on anyone.

* * *

District Three

The Markers set up a scholarship in Ryx's name. It didn't stop the pain. Karson and Mikhail D'Amour found comfort in their work and in each other. A year after Andrea died they adopted an infant girl abandoned at their hospital. She didn't replace the missing piece of their family, but she forged a new one.

* * *

Andromeda Dior- District One female

This was it. No time left for doubting or hesitating. I had to accept that whether I lived or died depended not on what others thought of me but on nothing but my own abilities. Frankly, my insecurities were an indulgence. I couldn't afford to coddle my ego with thoughts of how I stacked up to others. This wasn't a popularity contest. This was winning or dying.

All four of us tensed at the parachute. Percy was the one who grabbed it, since he was the tallest, but he handed it to me after seeing the numeral etched into the canister. The tension was palpable as I opened the package, each of my allies ready in case it was something that swayed the power balance.

It was a gauntlet- sleek metal armband with a blade the length of my hand attached to a spring in the wristband. It was the sort of weapon that in an untrained Tribute's possession would cause an amputated hand. With my unarmed combat skills it was a formidable asset but not a game-changing one. After I slowly clipped it onto my arm, without any sudden movements, we were back on our way.

* * *

Cyrene Longuemare- District Four female

One day. We had probably one more day in the Arena. One day separated me from any life I wanted. Saying 'any life I wanted' in Panem seemed naive, but it was entirely the opposite. I was too experienced to even want something in opposition to the Capitol. I wanted a comfortable life within the system, no matter how many people I had to kill to get there.

It was morning before we found any trace of Katrina. With the aid of daylight her trail was more evident. We'd reached an area where the water grew shallower and the mud was viscous enough to support weight. It was then that the depressions- not tracks so much as inconsistencies in the surface- became visible. It was a perilous choice she had between slow progress in water and open exposure on land. She'd made a desperate choice to put more distance between herself and us. We slogged onto the solid land and looked ahead.

Andromeda was the first to spot her. She'd gone back into the water on the other side of the island and was wading toward a thicket of vegetation. Percy had the throwing knife in his hand just as the vegetation closed behind her and blocked the view. Before the cannon even sounded Medusa stabbed him in the back.

* * *

Katrina Moonshadow- District Seven male

They say time slows down in the instant before you die. I wouldn't say my life flashed before my eyes, but more time definitely passed inside my head than outside. Between the prick of pain and the blackness when the knife pierced my skull, I had time to think about how I hadn't even known what I wanted to be when I grew up, and how I'd hoped that when I won I could find my mother back, and to hope my body looked peaceful for my father. I had time to wonder who won and to know that whoever did would never be whole again and probably hadn't been even before they volunteered.

* * *

Percy Mordecai- District Four male

Regret. In my last moments, it was all regret. It must have been how Lyon felt as he died. I regretted the immaturity and lack of self-love that led me to Tyson and the months I wasted staying with him. I regretted throwing my life away for someone who didn't deserve it. I mourned for the life I could have had if I'd met someone like Lyon and fallen in real love. It was all wasted now. None of that would ever be, because of my poor decisions. Sometimes they bring back the ghosts in Panem to watch them fight again. I hoped my ghost met Lyon's.

* * *

Andromeda Dior- District One female

Percy gasped and took half a step forward. A cannon boomed. Cyrene's arm flashed up toward Medusa's back, the knife glittering at its end. My arm snapped out to meet it. There was a clatter as her blade hit the armband. A flash as the knife sprang out. And another gasp as I stuck it into Cyrene's stomach and up under her ribcage. I hadn't even thought about it as I did it. I saw a knife going toward Medusa and I reacted.

I shoved forward the rest of the way, lifting Cyrene onto her toes on the blade, and blood ran down my arm. I let my arm relax and she slid off the blade and fell to the ground.

I looked up at Medusa. Her eyes shone and her face was drawn tight. It went without saying that she'd seen what happened and knew why. In the moment we looked at each other, the twenty-second cannon sounded.

Her eyes overflowed. "It had to be you," she said.

* * *

**Woot sudden carnage. That's what happens when it's just Careers left. The quick and the dead indeed.**

**5th place: Katrina Moonshadow- Knife thrown by Percy**

**I didn't need the poll for this one. Katrina was one outlier against four unified Careers. She did amazing to make it this far but it just wasn't in the cards. People were afraid at first that Katrina would be a Mary Sue with her weapons skills. I was already planning how to work with that when I noticed her form said she wasn't good with weapons. So I wrote that in and everyone fell in love with her as a refreshing subversion of a total Sue trope. People were also endeared by her honest appraisal of herself and her skills. She swallowed her pride and buckled down and in a year with weaker Careers she would have been one of the ones to beat. Thanks LordZagreus for the extreme rarity of a Tribute with real and critical weaknesses.**

**4th place: Percy Mordecai- Stabbed by Medusa**

**Medusa's been planning this since they left the Cornucopia. Simple logic: Percy uses ranged weapons and therefore must not be allowed to get distance. Percy ended up pretty popular. A lot of people appreciated him growing up and learning about relationships. Others were turned off by him being a quasi-volunteer. That IS one reason I didn't pick him to win. I've been itching for a real hardcore killer male Career Victor and Percy was just sort of halfway there. I also really want to see him interact with Reefe in the upcoming Careers All-Stars Games. I always feel bad saying I'm saving someone for an All-Stars Games since their chances are so much lower there, so rest in the knowledge that that wasn't the final reason I killed him. I just judged him to be outmatched by Careers with 2-3 years more experience. Thanks 66samvr for a boy with realistic blind spots who made a doomed connection with Lyon that never even reached the star-crossed stage.**

**3rd place: Cyrene Longuemare**

**I'm putting her wrap-up POV in the beginning of the next chapter since putting it here would have awkwardly split the ending moment of the chapter. It'll still be awkward where I'm putting it but slightly less so. Cyrene was the only one whose fate was sealed long before this. Her creator actually didn't make her to win and straight-up voted in the poll to kill her. She was made to catalyze the Careers and boy did she! They annihilated this Games, mostly because of her iron will keeping them as a team. Cyrene didn't win this battle but she's the one you would call if you need to win a war. She was clever and experienced beyond her years and frankly should have done something better with her life than volunteer. She lost because Andromeda did something frankly out of emotion. I'm not saying it's the cliche 'cold woman couldn't understand emotions', but emotions are unpredictable and Cyrene wasn't present to see Andromeda and Medusa bond. Thanks JAJ for definitely the officer among the otherwise enlisted Careers.**

**Don't forget to submit to PrinceofCorinth's SYOT at s/13555658/1/Stay-Inside-The-15th-Hunger-Games ! Let's get it clogged overnight so she has to deal with 100 messages in the morning, okay?**


	46. Brother Will Deliver Brother Unto Death

**It took forever since I was mulling over how to write it and just in case a last-minute swing in popularity adjusted my opinion.**

* * *

Medusa Gorgona- District Two female

For years my go-to defense had been coldness sarcasm. Barbed taunts sprung up in my head one after another, and each time I silenced them. I couldn't do it. To anyone else, but not to Andromeda. She would take them to heart and it was because of that priceless quality about her that I couldn't do it. That meant I fought her naked- armorless and exposed.

Fighting Andromeda was the last, the very last, thing I ever wanted to do, but it was something I would do. The one time I had a friend to ask something of me and she would ask the only thing I couldn't give. This was the only thing that would bring value to my life. So many people fought with me in this fight. Euryale, who gave everything to bring me justice and whose pendant laid at my throat. Stheno, whose dreams lived in me and who already lost one sister. And myself, who I finally acknowledged as someone worth fighting for. But Andromeda would never ask for this. She wanted to earn it, and she would, if she could bear it.

* * *

Andromeda Dior- District One female

For a Career, a second is an eternity. Medusa and I stood motionless for an eternity. We knew what had to be done. We just wanted that last second together, and it broke my heart how we both trusted the other enough to take it.

I wished for anything in the world that I had two lives. If there was any way, any way at all, I would let Medusa win this. I wanted to give her the life she deserved and had come so far to win. But I couldn't. For my mother, sitting at home watching her child in mortal peril and praying her baby wouldn't be taken from her. For the father I never met and who might finally think I was worth knowing if I was a Victor. For everyone at the Academy who told me I couldn't, though they seemed so distant now where once they'd seemed all-important. I would have given Medusa the victory in a heartbeat if it didn't take my life with it. No, if Medusa was going to win, she would have to earn it, if she could bear it.

* * *

Medusa Gorgona- District Two female

I was the first to strike. It was inevitable I would be. I knew in the eyes of everyone watching she was the hero and I was the monster. They saw me as her last obstacle to winning. No doubt they were judging me now for using a sword where she had a shorter knife, as though I had known beforehand what she would use so I could take unfair advantage.

Something disappeared in the air when I struck. I felt the severing of a relationship like a snapping thread. I saw the resignation in Andromeda's eyes and damned myself for the tiny speck of hope I saw vanish.

Having the longer blade didn't mean this fight was foregone. Andromeda could, and did, even the odds by dodging closer around the strike so we were almost touching. A sob caught in my throat when she did. In the position we ended in, it was like we were hugging.

* * *

Andromeda Dior- District One female

It didn't seem real. Five minutes ago there were five opponents in the Arena and now both of us were seconds from victory. I was minutes from leaving this place. My mind seemed unable to hold the idea in my head. I was blinded by the immediate fight and the pain of who I was fighting against.

I aimed my blade up under Medusa's ribs, praying it could be over that quick. But she was as trained as I was. She arched her back away from it and hooked my leg in the same motion. I hooked my leg back around hers and we both fell, my knife cutting a path down her arm as we went.

On the ground it was impossible for Medusa to get the leverage for a proper sword strike. She switched gears seamlessly and hooked her finger into my right eye. I felt the soft tissue displace around her finger and screamed as I lashed out with as much panic as precision. My blade swiped across her forearm and she launched herself off me as she pulled her arm back. As I was getting up, she came at me again, sword in her hand.

* * *

Medusa Gorgona- District Two female

I aimed a kick straight at Andromeda's face. If it connected it would definitely break her nose and would very likely knock her out. Her knife flashed toward my foot, as I knew it would.

I didn't stop. Momentum aided the knife in stabbing through the sole of my boot and into my flesh. I twisted my foot as I stomped down. It hurt far more even than I'd expected- if I'd really known beforehand, I wouldn't have had the nerve. But it accomplished my purpose. Andromeda shrieked as the her fingers spindled and snapped under my foot and caught around the knife. I felt the blood flow as it pooled under my foot.

It was a life-or-death risk. If this ended before Andromeda got to her feet, it paid off. If she ever stood again, I would be fighting on a mangled foot. I took my sword in both hands and bore down to impale her. She tangled her legs around my leg and flopped sideways. I dropped my knee on her stomach as I landed. She gasped, and at the pain in her breath I felt the reflex appear and vanish to ask her if she was all right.

* * *

Andromeda Dior- District One female

She wanted to ask if I was all right. I saw it in the roundness of her eyes. She hadn't stopped fighting, not for an instant, but still it was there.

_My friend, _I thought as I fought back. I'd stopped trying to hold back the tears the moment the fight began. They flowed freely, not blocking my vision for the simple fact of how quickly the blurring overflowed and fell. I saw from the trail on Medusa's cheek that one had escaped her as well, and the rest were just as evident by the agonized lines around her eyes. Refusal had never been an option for us. We were like two robots unable to defy our programming but cruelly able to feel everything a human did.

My hand pulsated with the knifing, cutting pain of my splintered bones and the lacerations etched into me when my fingers were stomped around the blade of my gauntlet. Strips hung off my fingers like a filleted fish. And the urgency of the situation was so overwhelming I barely registered it. I felt it, for sure, but reacting to it never entered my mind.

I sobbed aloud as I aimed the strike at Medusa's throat. I would never forgive myself. I had seen Medusa as human and there was no going back. I had learned her life, and her dreams, and her pains, and if my knife went true I would kill her. Someday after that I would celebrate my victory, but happiness would come long after the act.

* * *

Medusa Gorgona- District Two female

I batted at Andromeda's arm as she tried to cut my throat. Her arm slid up mine and the knife tore across my face, opening a slit from my jawline to the bridge of my nose. I shoved my sword forward, my free hand on its blade to steady it.

Just like that. Andromeda's eyes went round as saucers and her lips parted slightly. I looked down and saw the sword where it merged with her chest and continued unseen under her ribs and into her heart. I felt the pressure on my hand as her stomach rose with a breath. When I looked into her eyes, I realized I had done something I could never take back. There was no betrayal in her eyes, no anger. There was failure.

* * *

Andromeda Dior- District One female

Strike, block, parry. The rhythm that flows through every sparring match in the Academy. We fight over and over because thousands upon thousands of repetitions bring us closer and closer to perfection. But that curve flattens. We practice to reduce the chance of a strike getting past us, but that chance never vanishes. One single strike you don't catch in time, and everything is lost.

The skin on my stomach pricked at me as it slid across the blade with my drawing of breath. I felt the never-before-felt but preternaturally familiar sensation of a mortal wound, of my life coming unmoored from my body.

I became aware again that Medusa was sitting over me. She was trembling.

"Andromeda," she said, like someone who'd mistakenly shot their sister playing with their father's gun. Her lips trembled and her eyes had the ashen agony of an expressionist painting. She drew back like she was afraid she would contaminate me.

I didn't hold it against her, not at all. It was my fault. I was too weak, or too slow, or too unvigilant in my training. They'd been right to want to send someone else. Everyone who put so much into supporting me, I had let them down.

Medusa's expression changed as she interpreted my expression. She shook her head violently and scooted closer to me.

"It took everything to beat you. Everything I had," she said. "I didn't hold anything back. Everything you did here was all you."

I smiled.

* * *

Medusa Gorgona- District Two female

Words bubbled out of me like the tears that freely fell.

"_You _earned your spot. _You _killed Angus and Siobhan. You killed _Cyrene. _You were so strong. You were so strong." The last sentence tapered off into sobs. I hadn't cried since the seconds leading up to my sister's execution. I'd thought I didn't have any heart left after that. I'd endured bullying and loss and the slow strangulation of my imagination. But to see Andromeda thinking she had failed, that I could not bear.

Andromeda smiled. It wasn't the healed smile of someone who had gone through pain and come out the other side. It was the smile of a world-weary elder who hadn't stopped hurting but had the widened perspective to smile despite it.

The burden fell off my shoulders and was immediately replaced by a new one. Andromeda was at peace, but that didn't absolve me. I'd still killed my only friend. Pain on her behalf transmuted into shame on my own behalf.

I knelt by Andromeda, undeserving to take her hand. Already she had the otherworldly glow of someone nearing death. I bowed my head and said the closest I had to putting my feelings into words.

"You said I wasn't ugly," I said.

"You aren't," she breathed. And it was the last breath I saw. The rest were too shallow to see, and then weren't at all.

* * *

Andromeda Dior- District One female

Medusa blurred over me. When I no longer felt the need to keep my eyes open, I shut them. She dwindled in my mind until she was a pleasantly remembered but remote ember. She had made a great mark on my life, but I had had much life before her. Her form was replaced with my mother's. I thought of the last time she'd held me, and how far later, I'd looked forward to the day when I would be holding her. I wanted her now, in the Arena with me, to hold me as I lay dying. But when we met again, I could hold my head high. In her eyes I could never disappoint. A father that didn't care to ever know me didn't deserve my pain. In the eyes of everyone that mattered- Medusa, Mama, and me- I was worthwhile.

* * *

**2nd place: Andromeda Dior- Stabbed by Medusa**

**Andromeda was a possible Victor from the start. I knew she'd be popular and she had a story I could have worked with. As I wrote the last few chapters I dabbled with her winning more than once. She would have made a good Victor. Andromeda came into the Games unsure and blossomed into one of the deadliest competitors as well as a wiser person. She didn't lose sight of her motivation to win, but she allowed Medusa into her life and showed her friendship she'd never known. Together they were unstoppable and fractured they were heartbroken. Thanks PrinceofCorinth for Andromeda. Second sucks, not gonna say it doesn't, but she did good.**

**Victor: Medusa Gorgona, District Two female**

**For the first time in like twelve SYOTs, my first pick for Victor actually won. Medusa was just cool. I was impressed by the levels of meaning in her form, modernizing a mythical character I'd always had sympathy for into a hardened competitor that reflected the rape culture of the original with an additional dimension of racism. Throughout the story, she opened up to Andromeda but they never crossed the line into unrealistic intimacy for the short time they had together. Andromeda was a glimmer in Medusa's life, not a sustainable fire. Medusa is going to be one of the more complex Victors as she deals with guilt, making and losing her first friend in a period of weeks, and difficulty adjusting back to normal life. She has only started growing. Congratulations, Ripple237. Enter into an elite club that's mostly elite because the vast majority of people have never heard of it.**

**Sidenote- Medusa IS a Career but she's a female so I still am hoping for a male Career Victor soon. Also don't go crazy making reservations because the next SYOT is a Careers All-Stars and slots are unlimited. Also fyi you can submit Careers from other authors' stories and you can make an original Career if you don't have any. Anyone who already made reservations, they're written down for the next next SYOT.**


	47. Coronation

Medusa Gorgona, Victor

I'd heard from the Academy rumor mill that the first two or so weeks after winning were a drugged-up haze of waking up and getting knocked out. Careers usually got it the worst since we always tried to get up as soon as we could. I avoided most of it because I was in no hurry. I lay still, either asleep or pretending to be asleep, as long as I could. I didn't want any company. My own thoughts, so hard and painful to process, were enough.

When I overheard one of the doctors saying they were going to replace the IV and inject adrenaline if I didn't wake up soon, I opened my eyes.

"It's okay, I'm up," I said.

The doctor startled. "You've been up?" he asked.

"I've _been _up. I just didn't want to _get _up," I said. But he was already running out to fetch my mentor and retinue and a million other people I didn't want.

Before Pray and Ava got back I took the opportunity to check myself out in the mirror beside the bed. My attention immediately riveted on the scar running across my face. My eyes watered as I looked up and down its length.

"I'm sorry, honey," the nurse said soothingly behind me. "It was too close to the facial muscles to fully close. But it'll be easy to cover with a little concealer."

_I don't care about that at all. _She didn't understand anything. I was used to being hideous. It wasn't the scar. It was who gave it. I had a lifelong reminder of a friend I'd made and lost. For decades Andromeda's mark on the world would remain- an etched reminder of her fight for what I attained.

"And the rest we didn't even have to change!" the nurse said, patting me on the shoulder "You were already so pretty." I could see a subtle evening of my lips and removal of some faint blemishes, but for the most part, it was my face. And my hair, poofing out even larger than it had when I'd gone into the Games.

"I'm not pretty," I said halfheartedly. The nurse didn't even hear it. And I realized I hadn't meant it.

Ava was by nature hesitant and afraid of saying the wrong thing. Pray had no sense of social niceties and simply did not care to learn. It made for an awkwardly thick stretch of silence, or at least it was awkward for me and Ava.

"So. How do you feel?" Ava ventured at last, twining her fingers.

"I don't really feel anything," I said. I'd done it. Everything I worked for, the culmination of eleven years of training, rekindling a light I'd lost when I was a little girl, everything I could have hoped for, professionally and personally. But I wasn't smiling. I wasn't frowning either. I held back from going either way because nothing was enough. I'd thought so much about getting to this moment and never thought of being _in _the moment. I had no expression because no expression was worth this moment. Looking at Ava's face as she tried to be supportive and Pray's face as she basked in the vicarious pride of bringing home another winner made me wish they'd both leave.

"I think I have to be alone a while before I'll figure it out," I said.

I didn't say anything as the stylists prettied me up. They put the bronze glitter on my hair and brushed on the green eyeshadow and zipped up the metallic snakeskin dress I inwardly rolled my eyes at. _Very original. Very clever. _

It was easier once I got onto the stage. Behind all the makeup and costume and distanced from the audience and from Caesar, I didn't feel authentic and it was no trouble to make the mandated small talk.

"It's been a while since we've had a volunteer win," Caesar said, elegantly sidestepping the name given to Tributes who technically were breaking the law.

"I just knew I could do it and I walked the walk," I said. I cringed a little at how insipid it sounded.

"You made some friends in the Arena," Caesar said. He really wasn't a bad guy. I could see he was asking because he couldn't avoid it.

"Yes," I said. I took a second to compose myself. "It was a privilege to fight with them."

"Let's take a look at some of the highlights." Caesar was kind enough to warn me that the replay was about to start. My heart quailed as the lights dimmed around me. I focused past the screen so the pictures blurred as they flickered. Though it was the worst part of all, I watched the final fight in sharp focus. The pain wasn't a consideration. I would show Andromeda the District Two honor of acknowledging her dry-eyed, displaying the feat of controlling even my emotions- something I couldn't accomplish in the Arena.

When President Snow came to present the crown, an unpleasant smell preceded him. I wondered what stagehand allowed rotten roses to slip into the decorations until it came to me that the smell came from Snow. I didn't like looking at him as he walked toward me. He had the appearance of a dead man warmed amateurishly in an oven.

When I saw the crown, I had to smile. It was amusing in its sheer stupid obviousness. A bronze snake, devouring its own tail.

* * *

**Don't forget to submit to PrinceofCorinth's SYOT at s/13555658/1/Stay-Inside-The-15th-Hunger-Games**

**Get these last few slots filled so he can really get rolling!**


	48. Initiation

**I took forever because I couldn't think of a good initiation activity ngl but I finally did so here it is.**

* * *

Medusa Gorgona, Victor

I stared at the ungiving block of marble in front of me. I was a Victor now. I didn't have to use the cheap soapstone that had been all we could afford back in Two. The marble was colder and harder than the soapstone. It spoke of austerity and timelessness. Marble was the base for a sculpture that meant something.

Most of the Victors around me were using clay. Careers aren't by nature an artistic bunch. Most of us didn't even have a real talent. There were a lot of ghostwriters and ghostpainters in our Districts, their works getting fawned over and bought by adoring critics who had no idea they were really made by unknown nobodies. I didn't think I was going to pick sculpting for my official talent. It was something I didn't want to waste on people who only valued me for the Games. I'd chosen it instead for my initiation. Art is therapy, they say. I'd heard Abrexa used it with some of her clientele, which included more Two mentors than we wanted people to know.

I tried to envision the therapeutic value as I chipped at the stone with my chisel. Someone with a psychology degree would no doubt say I was symbolically chipping away at my emotional baggage, or something like that. If it was that easy everybody would have perfect mental health. I probably could have used therapy a long time ago, but I'd never considered it. Two wasn't a place where we tolerated weakness. I knew the Academy had people keeping tabs on who showed signs of instability and I didn't have enough faith to think a doctor would keep confidentiality when faced with the kind of bribes the Academy could provide. What would they think about a girl who couldn't even fight off one trainer?

_Maybe it does work that way, _I thought bitterly. I'd never know if chipping away at my problems would work. First I would have to let them out from where I'd locked them inside myself, and that would never happen. That was one pain I would always bear alone.

"What are you making?" Ava asked, peeking around my arms at my work.

"A bust," I said. She seemed to have expected the answer. "How about you?"

"I call it 'Bowl'," she said, hands flourishing around the clay she was coiling into a vessel. "It was either that or my other idea, 'Plate'."

I looked around the room at what the others were doing. Hlenn was working on some abstract formation of swoops and curls. Pray was making a knife, naturally. She'd told us her plan was to fire it in the kiln and see if it could actually stab anything. Meenah was adding the last leg to a fist-sized spider. She looked it over to confirm it was done, then squeezed it into a lump with a gleeful smile. She set to work sculpting it again to repeat the process she'd already completed twice. Randy was making a fat little seal and Cornflower was making a rabbit.

_Isn't that just appropriate. _I couldn't help but notice. Not all of us, but many of us were making something related to our Games. It was decades later for some of us but still it dominated all our lives. It froze us in time, like a sculpture. Ava had mentioned that many initiations included lots of talking about the Games. I hadn't made any move to do so. I was still working it out inside myself. I wasn't ready yet to talk about it with them. There was no need to hurry. We were bonded for life now. Victors spent most of their time with other Victors. The Games make you into something different. Only another Victor can talk to you as an equal.

When I was little I used to get lost in my sculpting. I made crazy creatures like something out of an ancient myth. Euryale always said each one was the best I'd ever made. She would make some other animal and we'd make up adventures for them. I still had some of them, but others were gone. I didn't even remember where they went. It surprised me how easily it came back to me. I fell into the rhythm of feeling the lines in the stone and carefully extracting the shape from the stone around it. But I didn't know if I'd ever make creatures like that again. Even if you find your way back to the way you once were, you might find that magic is gone.

A face started to take form. It had a triangular nose like mine and my same inverted v-shaped eyebrows.

"Oh cool, a self-portrait," Azure said as he checked it out. He made an appreciative swirl around his face with one hand, indicating his looks. "My favorite kind of art."

I didn't correct him. This was something else made only for me. But it wasn't my face, though it resembled it more than it should have, for even the most beloved faces blur in the mind after enough time. It was Euryale peeking out from the stone. She was the sister who had always been dearest to me, who murdered the one who hurt me and showed no regret when they led her to the guillotine. I hadn't sculpted in years and when I picked up the chisel I'd known right away she was what I wanted to make. A memorial, a reminder, a celebration, a tribute. If a psychiatrist heard about it, I was sure she'd say I made the sculpture not so I could see my sister again, but so she could see me now.


	49. Epilogue Finally

**I kept thinking "I should write," then looking at the doc and going "nyehhh". Finally I thought you all are probably starting to get worried, since I actually get worried PMs if I take more than a few days to write, which is both funny and heartwarming. So here it finally is. More info at bottom.**

* * *

Medusa Gorgona, Victor

It was strange to be a Career on the Victory Tour. When an outlier won they were paraded from one District to another, each District happy that if they didn't win, at least it wasn't one of the Careers. I _was _a Career.

District One's feast was an abortive affair cut short by the legions of shouting Districters who threw things. I couldn't have expected them to understand Andromeda and I really were friends. All they knew what that she was dead and I killed her.

Three was a bunch of impassive-faced ashy-skinned strangers who were thoroughly unimpressed with me. I hadn't directly killed Andrea or Ryx, so they weren't directly angry with me, but they weren't excited either. They looked bored, honestly. It was the yearly intrusion into their workdays and while they were happy with the food they were 100% over me.

I knew Four was going to be a hard one. Career Districts already hate each other enough. We all think of each other as back-stabbers and this time I actually was. The fish was immaculately prepared and plated, but it tasted like mud, and I didn't think that was an accident. I slunk back into the train after mumbling through a prepared speech.

Five through Seven went a dully as expected. I hadn't directly hurt either of them, but still they shut me out. It was almost funny how familiar the Victory Tour felt. I'd been excluded my entire life and was just now starting to no longer care. It was harder with the tour, though. After all the years it took for me to get over being picked on for no reason, this time, there absolutely was a reason I was getting hated.

It was hard to look the people of Eight in the eye. I killed a terminally ill boy. Not one of my proudest moments. He was gonna die anyway, which was how I stopped myself from feeling bad, but perversely he was one of the only ones I really felt guilty about killing. Killing people was just part of life in Two, but a dying kid is a low blow.

Eleven was a sea of dark glittering eyes. An entire District of hulking, silent people passed judgement on me as we were forced to sit at a table together. There was nothing for me to say and no way to take it back. I shoveled the food down and beat it.

I hadn't known it was like this. I knew the outlying Districts were poorer, but I had no idea. They were wearing clothes so old I would have thrown them away months ago. Some of the kids didn't even have shoes. I barely ate anything from their feast. They needed it more than I did. And for the first time I thought I'd had an easy life.

* * *

Going back home was something I'd long been ambivalent about. I was super excited to see my family again. I was underwhelmed about everything else. I already knew what it would be like, and I wasn't wrong.

I'd never seen Stheno the way she was when I stepped off the train. My big sister had been passed over by the Academy at eighteen. Her life's calling had ignored her and she had been a bitter, jaded Peacekeeper ever since. Before I even got off the train I saw her wildly waving and jumping up and down. We ran into each other and locked into a clenching hug.

"We did it we did it we did it!" Stheno screamed, beaming widely and shaking me. She leaned back and hoisted me off the ground in her triumphant hug.

Two likes to hold up their Victors as the pinnacle of individual achievement. Anyone that was actually in the running knows that it takes a village to make a Victor. Stheno never set foot in the Arena, but she could rightfully claim her share of my victory. Stheno, Euryale, my parents, my instructors, and so many others who got me here.

"Hey! Medusa!"

I wrinkled my nose at the familiar voices. Dozens of Academy students were fighting their way through the crowds to greet me.

"We knew you could do it!" Corvus Skurton, the boy who stuck a stick figure drawing of a girl's decapitated head on my locker every year, said.

"I missed you so much, Medusa! We need to catch up sometime!" Belladonna Arius said as she tried to grab my arm. It was the first time she'd called me by my name and not "Nappy-head".

The thronging horde pressed around me, everyone trying to get their piece of the beloved Victor. I swept them back with an arm and shot a glare that gave most of them pause.

"Get out of here," I said.

* * *

It turned out life as a Victor wasn't much different from life as a student. Sure, everyone loved me now, but they didn't treat me any different than they had. None of them really wanted to be friends with me. They wanted to be friends with a Victor. It was a welcome boost to my mental health, though, to be the one in a position to send away would-be friends. I had Euryale and the rest of my family. I wasn't ready for new friends yet anyway. I couldn't admit it, due to Two's culture, but I was in mourning. Someday I'd be ready to go back out into the District, and by the time I was, new Victors would have come and I'd be blown-over. I'd always be famous, but I'd die down enough that people might actually treat me like a normal person.

In the meantime, I had the other Victors. What pulled me out of my funk more than anything else turned out to be Bambi. He'd published dozens of stories and books, most of them for little kids. He told me he'd started shortly after his own victory when he was tired of sad endings and wanted to put something happy into the world. I'd stopped telling stories when I was in middle school, but I still remembered them. I started out by giving him ideas for his stories. It slowly morphed into me helping him write, and then co-writing a story with him, and then adding one of my own to his collection. They were silly, fluffy little things, so entirely unlike me that I used a pen name and swore him to never tell. It was wonderful how easily the magical creatures and sprawling worlds came back to me.

In the Arena Andromeda said if she won she wanted to go to other Districts in disguise and do good things once in a while. Bambi gave away truckloads of his books to libraries in poor Districts. It made me happy to think of some kid in Twelve reading my story and smiling. And if some of my characters happened to look a little like Andromeda, it was just to be expected. And if some of them had friends that looked a little like me, no one would guess, especially since in the stories, I didn't have a scar.

* * *

**NOW go crazy and send in the nominations for the Career All-Stars. Remember:**

**As many as you want since there are no limits**

**You can send in anyone from any SYOT on the site. Even if the story is active and they're still alive, they're eligible.**

**They don't technically HAVE to be from a Career District but it's a Career Games. Basically the rule of thumb is just consider whether they belong more in an only Career Games or an only non-Career Games.**

**If you don't have any Tributes anywhere, you can make an original (or 2 but pls no more we're already gonna have like a hundred Tributes). That way everyone can participate.**

**I'll take pretty much any nomination but in some rare cases the original submitter doesn't want their Tribute appearing so of course then I won't.**

**See you soon and RIP my inbox.**


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